man who does. It was as if
Milly had said to herself: "Well, he can at least meet her in my
society, if that's anything to him; so that my line can only be to make
my society attractive." She certainly couldn't have made a different
impression if she _had_ so reasoned. All of which, none the less,
didn't prevent his soon enough saying to her, quite as if she were to
be whirled into space: "And now, then, what becomes of you? Do you
begin to rush about on visits to country-houses?"

She disowned the idea with a headshake that, put on what face she
would, couldn't help betraying to him something of her suppressed view
of the possibility--ever, ever perhaps--of any such proceedings. They
weren't at any rate for her now. "Dear no. We go abroad for a few weeks
somewhere of high air. That has been before us for many days; we've
only been kept on by last necessities here. However, everything's done
and the wind's in our sails."

"May you scud then happily before it! But when," he asked, "do you come
back?"

She looked ever so vague; then as if to correct it: "Oh when the wind
turns. And what do you do with your summer?"

"Ah I spend it in sordid toil. I drench it with mercenary ink. My work
in your country counts for play as well. You see what's thought of the
pleasure your country can give. My holiday's over."

"I'm sorry you had to take it," said Milly, "at such a different time
from ours. If you could but have worked while we've been working--"

"I might be playing while you play? Oh the distinction isn't so great
with me. There's a little of each for me, of work and of play, in
either. But you and Mrs. Stringham, with Miss Croy and Mrs. Lowder--you
all," he went on, "have been given up, like navvies or niggers, to real
physical toil. Your rest is something you've earned and you need. My
labour's comparatively light."

"Very true," she smiled; "but all the same I like mine."

"It doesn't leave you 'done'?"

"Not a bit. I don't get tired when I'm interested. Oh I could go far."

He bethought himself. "Then why don't you?--since you've got here, as I
learn, the whole place in your pocket."

"Well, it's a kind of economy--I'm saving things up. I've enjoyed so
what you speak of--though your account of it's fantastic--that I'm
watching over its future, that I can't help being anxious and careful.
I want--in the interest itself of what I've had and may still have--not
to make stupid mistakes. The way not to make them