Chapter XV

IT was doubtless because this queer form of direct
ness had in itself, for the hour, seemed so sufficient
that Milly was afterwards aware of having really,
all the while during the strange, indescribable ses
sion before the return of their companions done
nothing to intensify it. If she was most aware only
afterwards, under the long, discurtained ordeal of
the morrow's dawn, that was because she had really,
till their evening's end came, ceased, after a little,
to miss anything from their ostensible comfort.
What was behind showed but in gleams and
glimpses; what was in front never at all confessed
to not holding the stage. Three minutes had not
passed before Milly quite knew she should have done
nothing Aunt Maud had just asked her. She knew
it moreover by much the same light that had acted
for her with that lady and with Sir Luke Strett. It
pressed upon her then and there that she was still in
a current determined, through her indifference, tim
idity, bravery, generosity she scarce could say
which by others; that not she but the current
acted, and that somebody else, always, was the
keeper of the lock or the dam. Kate for example
had but to open the flood-gate: the current moved
in its mass the current, as it had been, of her doing

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v?