"No, certainly not."
"And that is your last word?"
"Yes."
There was a silence. Helen looked away over the water towards the
fir-trees. She was pale, but very quiet; all her angry agitation seemed
to have died away. Vera stood a little beneath her on the lowest step,
close down to the water; she held the little parcel that was the object
of the dispute in her hands, and was looking at it with an expression of
deep annoyance; she was wishing heartily that she had never seen either
it or the wretched little Frenchman who had insisted upon confiding it to
her care.
Neither of them spoke; for an instant neither of them even moved. There
was a striking contrast between them: Helen, slight and fragile in her
bird-of-paradise garments, with jewels about her neck, and golden chains
at her wrist; her pretty piquant face, almost childish in the contour of
the small, delicate features. Vera, in her plain, tight-fitting dress,
whose only beauty lay in the perfect simplicity with which it followed
the lines of her glorious figure; her pure, lovely face, laden with its
burden of deep sadness, a little turned away from the other woman who had
taken everything from her, and left her life so desolate.
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