A BAYARD OF BROADWAY
mothers—but she asked me if I'd try to look out for you. She knew I wasn't perfect myself. That's—that's why she thought I wouldn't do for Helena. Helena was always so wonderful, so high above"
Again he stopped, and the boy's voice broke in: "Helena's made of snow and ice-water," he said moodily, "she's too good for this earth. She doesn't know"
"She knows what her brother should be, and she knows what her husband must be," Dillon interrupted sternly. "No sister could have been more of an angel to you. Bob.
"Now I'll go on. It's going to be necessary just here for me to tell you that I love your sister. You don't know anything about that, of course. You don't for a second of your life realise what it is to love a woman as I've loved her for—for five years, we'll say. I put it five because, though I loved her long before, things happened in between, and I don't count it till five years ago. Heaven knows I'm not worth her shoe-laces. Once or twice—before the five years—I've realised that
132
