l one down, I hate the beastly place," said Dick.
And he went on: "She is being awfully nice to me. I don't remember her
ever having been so nice--since, I mean, we decided that we couldn't hit
it off. One would really say that she rather liked seeing me!" and Dick
smiled, as if the joke were very comical.

"You have been in such danger. Milly can but feel relief." Her voice was
full of an odd repression, discouragement, but Dick was altogether too
innocent of any hope to be aware of discouragement or repression.

"She was worried about me? Really? That was awfully good of her," he
said.

Christina was remembering that Milly had only expressed indifference as
to Dick's danger.

The ensuing evening was, to Christina, uncanny in its unapparent
strangeness. She and Dick were both aware of novelty and Milly was aware
of none. Her cheerful kindness was as natural and spontaneous as though
she had been a girl greeting a long absent brother. She questioned
Dick, and, as her questions showed interest--interest and a knowledge
horribly surprising to Christina--Dick talked with unusual fluency.
Christina looked at them and listened to them, while Milly, leaning an
arm on the table, gazed with gravely shining eyes at her husband. The
arm, the eyes, the lines of the throat, were very lovely. Christina's
mind fixed upon that beauty, and she wished that Milly would not lean so
and look so. Milly, again, was unaware. It was Christina who was aware;
Christina who was quivering with latent, unformulated consciousness.
After dinner, Milly and Dick still talked; she still listened. She knew
nothing about Africa.

For three or four days this was the situation; a reunited brother and
sister; a friend, for the time being, necessarily incidental. Then,
suddenly, the presages grew plainly ominous. Was it her own realization
of loneliness, of not being needed, that so overwhelmed her? or the
sense of some utter change in her darling--a change so gradual that
until its accomplishment it had seemed madness to recognize it? The
moment of recognition came one day, when, on going into the library,
she found Dick and Milly sitting side by side at the table, their heads
bent over a map; and they were not looking at the map; they were looking
at each other; still like brother and sister, but such fond brother and
sister, while they smiled and talked.

Milly turned her head and saw Christina, and Christina knew that some
evident adjustment went o