her in London for the
spring, and so, by degrees, they both came to think of home as the being
together. Christina's little house in Sloane Street became a centre of
discriminating hospitality; they had an equal talent for selection and
recognition, and Milly possessed the irradiating attractive qualities
that Christina lacked. Together they became something of a touchstone
for the finer, more recondite elements in the vortex of the larger
London life. All their people seemed to come to them through some
pleasant affinity, the people who had done clever things; the people
who, better still, shone only with latent possibilities and were the
richer for their reticences; and dear, comfortable, unexacting people
who were not particularly clever, but responsive, appreciative and
genuine.

Christina still wrote a little, but not so much. She and Milly studied
and travelled and, in the country, at the proper seasons, rusticated.
With all its harmony, their life did not want its more closely knitting
times of fear, as when Milly was dangerously ill and Christina nursed
her through the long crisis, or when Christina's heart showed alarming
symptoms and hurried them away to German specialists.

There were funny little quarrels, too, funny to look back upon, though
very painful at the moment; for Milly could be fretful, and Christina
violent in reproach. The swift reconciliations atoned for all, when,
holding each other's hands, they laughed at each other, each eager to
take the blame. Certain defects they came to recognize and to take into
account, tolerant, loving comprehension, the ripest stage of affection,
seeming achieved. Milly was capricious, had moods of gloom and
disconsolateness when nothing seemed to interest her, neither books nor
music nor people, not even Christina, and when, sunken in a deep
armchair, she would listlessly tap her fingers on the chair-arms, her
eyes empty of all but a monotonous melancholy. These moods always hurt
Christina,--Milly herself seemed hardly aware of them, certainly was not
aware of their hurting,--and she hid the hurt in a gentle sympathy that
averted tactful eyes from her friend's retirement. But she did not quite
understand; for she never wished to retire into herself and away from
Milly.

And Milly discovered that Christina could be unreasonable--so she
tolerantly termed a smouldering element in her friend's nature;
Christina, in fact, could be fiercely jealous. They shared all th