"I can't if I'm ill," retorted Joan. "Besides, I am helping him.
There are other ways of helping people than by wasting their time talking to them.""He wants you," said the child. "It's your being there that helps him."Joan stopped and turned. "Did he send you?" she asked.
"No," the child answered. "Mama had a headache this morning, and Islipped out. You're not keeping your promise."Palace Yard, save for a statuesque policeman, was empty.
"How do you know that my being with him helps him?" asked Joan.
"You know things when you love anybody," explained the child. "You feel them. You will come again, soon?"Joan did not answer.
"You're frightened," the child continued in a passionate, low voice. "You think that people will talk about you and look down upon you. You oughtn't to think about yourself. You ought to think only about him and his work. Nothing else matters.""I am thinking about him and his work," Joan answered. Her hand sought Hilda's and held it. "There are things you don't understand. Men and women can't help each other in the way you think. They may try to, and mean no harm in the beginning, but the harm comes, and then not only the woman but the man also suffers, and his work is spoilt and his life ruined."The small, hot hand clasped Joan's convulsively.
"But he won't be able to do his work if you keep away and never come back to him," she persisted. "Oh, I know it. It all depends upon you. He wants you.""And I want him, if that's any consolation to you," Joan answered with a short laugh. It wasn't much of a confession. The child was cute enough to have found that out for herself. "Only you see Ican't have him. And there's an end of it."They had reached the Abbey. Joan turned and they retraced their steps slowly.
"I shall be going away soon, for a little while," she said. The talk had helped her to decision. "When I come back I will come and see you all. And you must all come and see me, now and then. Iexpect I shall have a flat of my own. My father may be coming to live with me. Good-bye. Do all you can to help him."She stooped and kissed the child, straining her to her almost fiercely. But the child's lips were cold. She did not look back.
Miss Greyson was sympathetic towards her desire for a longish holiday and wonderfully helpful; and Mrs. Denton also approved, and, to Joan's surprise, kissed her; Mrs. Denton was not given to kissing. She wired to her father, and got his reply the same evening. He would be at her rooms on the day she had fixed with his travelling bag, and at her Ladyship's orders. "With love and many thanks," he had added. She waited till the day before starting to run round and say good-bye to the Phillipses. She felt it would be unwise to try and get out of doing that. Both Phillips and Hilda, she was thankful, were out; and she and Mrs. Phillips had tea alone together. The talk was difficult, so far as Joan was concerned. If the woman had been possessed of ordinary intuition, she might have arrived at the truth. Joan almost wished she would.
It would make her own future task the easier. But Mrs. Phillips, it was clear, was going to be no help to her.
For her father's sake, she made pretence of eagerness, but as the sea widened between her and the harbour lights it seemed as if a part of herself were being torn away from her.
They travelled leisurely through Holland and the Rhine land, and that helped a little: the new scenes and interests; and in Switzerland they discovered a delightful little village in an upland valley with just one small hotel, and decided to stay there for a while, so as to give themselves time to get their letters.
They took long walks and climbs, returning tired and hungry, looking forward to their dinner and the evening talk with the few other guests on the veranda. The days passed restfully in that hidden valley. The great white mountains closed her in. They seemed so strong and clean.
It was on the morning they were leaving that a telegram was put into her hands. Mrs. Phillips was ill at lodgings in Folkestone.
She hoped that Joan, on her way back, would come to see her.
She showed the telegram to her father. "Do you mind, Dad, if we go straight back?" she asked.
"No, dear," he answered, "if you wish it.""I would like to go back," she said.