inged on her and that was therefore first to be
dealt with. On this basis of being dealt with she would doubtless
herself do her share of the conquering: she would have something to
supply, Kate something to take--each of them thus, to that tune,
something for squaring with Aunt Maud's ideal. This in short was what
it came to now--that the occasion, in the quiet late lamplight, had the
quality of a rough rehearsal of the possible big drama. Milly knew
herself dealt with--handsomely, completely: she surrendered to the
knowledge, for so it was, she felt, that she supplied her helpful
force. And what Kate had to take Kate took as freely and, to all
appearance, as gratefully; accepting afresh, with each of her long,
slow walks, the relation between them so established and consecrating
her companion's surrender simply by the interest she gave it. The
interest to Milly herself we naturally mean; the interest to Kate Milly
felt as probably inferior. It easily and largely came for their present
talk, for the quick flight of the hour before the breach of the
spell--it all came, when considered, from the circumstance, not in the
least abnormal, that the handsome girl was in extraordinary "form."
Milly remembered her having said that she was at her best late at
night; remembered it by its having, with its fine assurance, made her
wonder when _she_ was at her best and how happy people must be who had
such a fixed time. She had no time at all; she was never at her
best--unless indeed it were exactly, as now, in listening, watching,
admiring, collapsing. If Kate moreover, quite mercilessly, had never
been so good, the beauty and the marvel of it was that she had never
really been so frank; being a person of such a calibre, as Milly would
have said, that, even while "dealing" with you and thereby, as it were,
picking her steps, she could let herself go, could, in irony, in
confidence, in extravagance, tell you things she had never told before.
That was the impression--that she was telling things, and quite
conceivably for her own relief as well; almost as if the errors of
vision, the mistakes of proportion, the residuary innocence of spirit
still to be remedied on the part of her auditor had their moments of
proving too much for her nerves. She went at them just now, these
sources of irritation, with an amused energy that it would have been
open to Milly to regard as cynical and that was nevertheless called
for--as to this the other wa