Page:The Wings of the Dove (New York, Charles Scribners Sons, 1902), Volume 2.djvu/145

 "He doesn't pity you," Susie earnestly reasoned. "He just—the same as any one else—likes you."

"He has no business then to like me. He's not the same as any one else."

"Why not, if he wants to work for you?"

Milly gave her another look, but this time a wonderful smile. "Ah, there you are!" Mrs. Stringham coloured, for there indeed she was again. But Milly let her off. "Work for me, all the same—work for me! It is of course what I want." Then, as usual, she embraced her friend. "I'm not going to be as nasty as this to him."

"I'm sure I hope not!"—and Mrs. Stringham laughed for the kiss. "I've no doubt, however, he'd take it from you! It's you, my dear, who are not the same as any one else."

Milly's assent to which, after an instant, gave her the last word. "No, so that people can take anything from me." And what Mrs. Stringham did indeed resignedly take after this was the absence, on her part, of any account of the visit then paid. It was the beginning in fact, between them, of an odd independence—an independence positively of action and custom—on the subject of Milly's future. They went their separate ways, with the girl's intense assent; this being really nothing but what she had so wonderfully put in her plea for after Mrs. Stringham's first encounter with Sir Luke. She fairly favoured the idea that Susie had or was to have other encounters—private, pointed, personal; 135