"Yes." Bee forgot to say more. She looked away at the lofty peaks opposite, where a ruby gleam lay athwart the snows. Yes, she would have Magda. She remembered in a flash her letter to Magda, telling her so eagerly of the settled plans; and her own hurt feeling at receiving no response.
In a month the response came; but before the close of that month another personality had entered her life. The three weeks at "Aunt Belle's" meant much to her. She had been in close touch with one whom she could never forget, who could never in the future be to her as a stranger. An impress had been made upon her life, transforming her at one touch into a woman. And if her love for Amy had paled a little before her warmer love for Magda, as starlight pales before moonlight, her love for Magda paled before this fresh experience, as moonlight pales before sunlight. Not that in either case her affection actually waned or altered, but that the lesser light became of necessity dim by comparison with the greater.
Nobody knew or suspected what had happened. Her gentle self-control prevented any betrayal of feeling on her part. The two had indeed been a great deal together, during those three weeks, but intercourse came about so simply and naturally, that she never could decide how far it was purely accidental, how far as a result of effort on his part. He seemed to enjoy being with her; and they seemed to suit; but whether he would remember her, whether he had any strong desire to meet her again, were questions which she had no power to decide. Their paths might lie permanently apart.
When the expected letter at last came from Magda, though she was a little grieved at the manifest lack of real delight in the prospect of having her at Burwood, it could not mean the same that it would have meant before that visit. For one who has been in strong sunshine, the brightest moonlight must seem pale.
"Bee, what are you cogitating about? I don't understand your face."
Bee smiled. "I was thinking over—varieties. These mountains make one think. Yes, I shall have Magda. But one friend does not fill another's place. You will always be you to me."
"And she will be she, I suppose."
"Yes; but she can never be you. Don't you see?"
Amy sighed profoundly. "All I know is that London will be a desert without you. And I'm torn in half—do you know that sensation?—between two longings. I long for you to be happy in Burwood; and if you weren't happy, I should be miserable. And yet I long for you to miss me so desperately that you can't be happy without me. There!—it's out! Horrid and mean of me! But it's true."
"Amy, you never could be mean. You are only too good—too unselfish."