what she herself saw. " You mean she ll immedi
ately speak? " Mrs. Stringham gathered that this
was what Milly meant, but it left still a question.
"How will it be against him that you know him?"

"Oh, I don't know. It won't be so much one's
knowing him as one's having kept it out of sight."

"Ah," said Mrs. Stringham, as if for comfort,
"you haven't kept it out of sight. Isn't it much
rather Miss Croy herself who has?"

"It isn't my acquaintance with him," Milly smiled,
"that she has dissimulated."

"She has dissimulated only her own? Well then,
the responsibility's hers."

"Ah but," said the girl, not perhaps with marked
consequence, " she has a right to do as she likes."

Then so, my dear, have you!" smiled Susan
Shepherd.

Milly looked at her as if she were almost venerably
simple, but also as if this were what one loved her
for. " We re not quarrelling about it, Kate and I,
yet."

"I only meant," Mrs. Stringham explained, " that
I don't see what Mrs. Condrip would gain."

"By her being able to tell Kate? " Milly thought.
"I only meant that I don't see what I myself should
gain."

"But it will have to come out that he knows you
both some time."

Milly scarce assented. " Do you mean when he
comes back?"

[[218]]

p217 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p218w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p219

v?