and scraps of seaweed.
A stranger, entering, felt at a loss. He looked at the bare wall-spaces of dark green, at the scanty furniture, and was assured of his unwelcome. The only objects of sympathy in the room were the white lamp that glowed on a stand near the wall, and the large, beautiful fern, with narrow fronds, which ruffled its cloud of green within the gloom of the window-bay. These only, with the fire, seemed friendly.
The three candles on the dark piano burned softly, the music fluttered on, but, like numbed butterflies, stupidly. Helena played mechanically. She broke the music beneath her bow, so that it came lifeless, very hurting to hear. The young man frowned, and pondered. Uneasily, he turned again to the players.
The violinist was a girl of twenty-eight. Her white dress, high-waisted, swung as she forced the rhythm, determinedly swaying to the time as if her body were the white stroke of a metronome. It made the young man frown as he watched. Yet he continued to watch. She had a very strong, vigorous body. Her neck, pure white, arched in strength from the fine hollow between her shoulders as she held the violin. The long white lace of her sleeve swung, floated, after the bow.
Byrne could not see her face, more than the full curve of her cheek. He watched her hair, which at the back was almost of the colour of the soapstone idol, take the candle-light into its vigorous freedom in front and glisten over her forehead.
Suddenly Helena broke off the music, and dropped her arm in irritable resignation. Louisa looked round from the piano, surprised.
“Why,” she cried, “wasn’t it all right?”
Helena laughed wearily.
“It was all wrong,” she answered, as she put her violin tenderly to rest.
“Oh, I’m sorry I did so badly,” said Louisa in a huff. She loved Helena passionately.
“You didn’t do badly at all,” replied her friend, in the same tired, apathetic tone. “It was I.”
When she had closed the black lid of her violin case, Helena stood a moment as if at a loss. Louisa looked up with eyes full of affection, like a dog that did not dare to move to her beloved. Getting no response, she drooped over the piano. At length Helena looked at her friend, then slowly closed her eyes. The burden of this excessive affection was too much for her. Smiling faintly, she said, as if she were coaxing a child:
“Play some Chopin, Louisa.”
“I shall only do that all wrong, like everything else,” said the elder plaintively. Louisa was thirty-five. She had been Helena’s friend for years.
“Play the mazurkas,” repeated Helena calmly.
Louisa rummaged among the music. Helena blew out her violin candle, and came to sit down on the side of the fire opposite to Byrne. The music began. Helena pressed her arms with her hands, musing.
“They are inflamed still!” said the young man.
She glanced up suddenly, her blue eyes, usually so heavy and tired, lighting up with a small smile.
“Yes,” she answered, and she pushed back her sleeve, revealing a fine, strong arm, which was scarlet on the outer side from shoulder to wrist, like some long, red-burned fruit. The girl laid her cheek on the smarting, soft flesh caressively.
“It is quite hot,” she smiled, again caressing her sun- scalded arm with peculiar joy.
“Funny to see a sunburn like that in mid-winter,” he replied, frowning. “I can’t think why it should last all these months. Don’t you ever put anything on to heal it?”
She smiled at him again, almost pitying, then put her mouth lovingly on the burn.
“It comes out every evening like this,” she said softly, with curious joy.
“And that was August, and now it’s February!” he exclaimed. “It must be psychological, you know. You make it come—the smart; you invoke it.”
She looked up at him, suddenly cold.
“I! I never think of it,” she answered briefly, with a kind of sneer.
The young man’s blood ran back from her at her acid tone. But the mortification was physical only. Smiling quickly, gently—
“Never?” he re-echoed.
There was silence between them for some moments, whilst Louisa continued to play the piano for their benefit. At last:
“Drat it!” she exclaimed, flouncing round on the piano-stool.
The two looked up at her.
“Ye did run well—what hath hindered you?” laughed Byrne.
“You!” cried Louisa. “Oh, I can’t play any more,” she added, dropping her arms along her skirt pathetically. Helena laughed quickly.
“Oh, I can’t, Helen!” pleaded Louisa.
“My dear,” said Helena, laughing briefly, “you are really under no obligation whatever.”
With the little groan of one who yields to a desire contrary to her self-respect, Louisa dropped at the feet of Helena, laid her arm and her head languishingly on the knee of her friend. The latter gave no sign, but continued to gaze in the fire. Byrne, on the other side of the hearth, sprawled in his chair, smoking a reflective cigarette.
The room was very quiet, silent even of the tick of a clock. Outside, the traffic swept by, and feet pattered along the pavement. But this vulgar storm of life seemed shut out of Helena’s room, that remained indifferent, like a church. Two candles burned dimly as on an altar, glistening yellow on the dark piano. The lamp was blown out, and the flameless fire, a red rubble, dwindled in the grate, so that the yellow glow of the candles seemed to shine even on the embers. Still no one spoke.
At last Helena shivered slightly in her chair, though did not change her position. She sat motionless.
“Will you make coffee, Louisa?” she asked. Louisa lifted herself, looked at her friend, and stretched slightly.
“Oh!” she groaned voluptuously. “This is so comfortable!”
“Don’t trouble then, I’ll go. No, don’t get up,” said Helena, trying to disengage herself. Louisa reached and put her hands on Helena’s wrists.
“I will go,” she drawled, almost groaning with voluptuousness and appealing love.
Then, as Helena still made movements to rise, the elder woman got up slowly, leaning as she did so all her weight on her friend.
“Where is the coffee?” she asked, affecting the dulness of lethargy. She was full of small affectations, being consumed with uneasy love.
“I think, my dear,” replied Helena, “it is in its usual place.”
“Oh—o-o-oh!” yawned Louisa, and she dragged herself out.
The two had been intimate friends for years, had slept together, and played together, and lived together. Now the friendship
