Ian was as white as herself.

"Milly, my poor girl, don't break our hearts."

He stretched his arms towards her, but she turned away from him towards
the door, made a few steps, then stopped and clutched her throat. He
thought her struggling with sobs; but when once more, as though in fear,
she turned her face towards him, he saw it strangely convulsed. He moved
towards her in an alarmed silence, but before he could reach her and
catch her in his arms, her head drooped, she swayed once upon her feet,
and fell heavily to the ground.

CHAPTER XXIV

"Now be reasonable Tims. You can be if you choose."

Mildred was perched on a high stool in Tims's Chambers, breathing spring
from a bunch of fresh Neapolitan violets, grown by an elderly admirer of
hers, and wearing her black, winter toque and dress with that invincible
air of smartness which she contrived to impart to the oldest clothes,
provided they were of her own choosing. Tims, who from her face and
attitude might have been taken for a victim of some extreme and secret
torture, crouched, balancing herself on the top rail of her fender. She
replied only by a horrible groan.

"Who do you suppose is the happier when Milly comes back?" continued
Mildred.

"Well--the brat."

"Tony? He doesn't even know when she's there; but by the time she's done
with him he's unnaturally good. He can't like that, can he?"

"Then there's Ian, good old boy!"

"That's humbug. You know it is."

"But it's Milly herself I really care about," cried Tims. "You've been a
pig to her, Mil. She says you're a devil, and if I weren't a scientific
woman I swear I should begin to believe there was something in it."

"No, Tims, dear," returned Mildred with earnestness. "I'm neither a pig
nor a devil." She paused. "Sometimes I think I've lived before, some
quite different life from this. But I suppose you'll say that's all
nonsense."

"Of course it is--rot," commented Tims, sternly. "You're a physiological
freak, that's what you are. You're nothing but Milly all the time, and
you ought to be decent to her."

"I don't want to hurt her anyhow," apologized Mildred; "but you see when
I'm only half there--well, I am only half there. I'm awfully rudimentary
and I can't grasp anything except that I'm being choked, squeezed out of
existence, and that I must make a fight for my life. Any woman becomes
rudimentary who is fighting for her life against another woman; only
I've more excuse fo