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.