th some inconsequence, this first of their councils.

II

It had at least made the difference for them, they could feel, of an
informed state in respect to the great doctor, whom they were now to
take as watching, waiting, studying, or at any rate as proposing to
himself some such process before he should make up his mind. Mrs.
Stringham understood him as considering the matter meanwhile in a
spirit that, on this same occasion, at Lancaster Gate, she had come
back to a rough notation of before retiring. She followed the course of
his reckoning. If what they had talked of _could_ happen--if Milly,
that is, could have her thoughts taken off herself--it wouldn't do any
harm and might conceivably do much good. If it couldn't happen--if,
anxiously, though tactfully working, they themselves, conjoined, could
do nothing to contribute to it--they would be in no worse a box than
before. Only in this latter case the girl would have had her free range
for the summer, for the autumn; she would have done her best in the
sense enjoined on her, and, coming back at the end to her eminent man,
would--besides having more to show him--find him more ready to go on
with her. It was visible further to Susan Shepherd--as well as being
ground for a second report to her old friend--that Milly did her part
for a working view of the general case, inasmuch as she mentioned
frankly and promptly that she meant to go and say good-bye to Sir Luke
Strett and thank him. She even specified what she was to thank him for,
his having been so easy about her behaviour.

"You see I didn't know that--for the liberty I took--I shouldn't
afterwards get a stiff note from him."

So much Milly had said to her, and it had made her a trifle rash. "Oh
you'll never get a stiff note from him in your life."

She felt her rashness, the next moment, at her young friend's question.
"Why not, as well as any one else who has played him a trick?"

"Well, because he doesn't regard it as a trick. He could understand
your action. It's all right, you see."

"Yes--I do see. It _is_ all right. He's easier with me than with any
one else, because that's the way to let me down. He's only making
believe, and I'm not worth hauling up."

Rueful at having provoked again this ominous flare, poor Susie grasped
at her only advantage. "Do you really accuse a man like Sir Luke Strett
of trifling with you?"

She couldn't blind herself to the look her companion gave her--a
strange hal