ld."

"No, my precious, not like all the world. Very much more deeply and
intelligently."

"Ah there you are!" Milly laughed. "That's the way, Susie, I want you.
So 'buck' up, my dear. We'll have beautiful times with him. Don't
worry."

"I'm not worrying, Milly." And poor Susie's face registered the
sublimity of her lie.

It was at this that, too sharply penetrated, her companion went to her,
met by her with an embrace in which things were said that exceeded
speech. Each held and clasped the other as if to console her for this
unnamed woe, the woe for Mrs. Stringham of learning the torment of
helplessness, the woe for Milly of having _her_, at such a time, to
think of. Milly's assumption was immense, and the difficulty for her
friend was that of not being able to gainsay it without bringing it
more to the proof than tenderness and vagueness could permit. Nothing
in fact came to the proof between them but that they could thus cling
together--except indeed that, as we have indicated, the pledge of
protection and support was all the younger woman's own. "I don't ask
you," she presently said, "what he told you for yourself, nor what he
told you to tell me, nor how he took it, really, that I had left him to
you, nor what passed between you about me in any way. It wasn't to get
that out of you that I took my means to make sure of your meeting
freely--for there are things I don't want to know. I shall see him
again and again and shall know more than enough. All I do want is that
you shall see me through on _his_ basis, whatever it is; which it's
enough--for the purpose--that you yourself should know: that is with
him to show you how. I'll make it charming for you--that's what I mean;
I'll keep you up to it in such a way that half the time you won't know
you're doing it. And for that you're to rest upon me. There. It's
understood. We keep each other going, and you may absolutely feel of me
that I shan't break down. So, with the way you haven't so much as a dig
of the elbow to fear, how could you be safer?"

"He told me I _can_ help you--of course he told me that," Susie, on her
side, eagerly contended. "Why shouldn't he, and for what else have I
come out with you? But he told me nothing dreadful--nothing, nothing,
nothing," the poor lady passionately protested. "Only that you must do
as you like and as he tells you--which _is_ just simply to do as you
like."

"I must keep in sight of him. I must from time to time go to