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 their friends, many of them dear friends, but dear on a certain level, below the illuminated solitude where they two stood in their precious isolation. And Milly protested to herself that she was the last person to wish that isolation disturbed. No one knew her, understood her, helped and loved her as Christina did; there was no one like Christina, no one so strong, so generous, so large-natured. Why then should Christina, like a foolish school-girl, show unmistakably—her efforts to hide it only making her look dim-eyed, white-lipped—a sombre misery if Milly allowed anyone to absorb her? This really piteous infirmity was latent in Christina; she did not show it at all during the first years of their companionship; it grew with her growing devotion to Milly. Milly discovered it when she asked little Joan Ashby to go to Italy with them. Christina, at the proposal, had been all glad, frank acquiescence. Unsuspectingly Milly petted and made much of the girl whose adoration was sweet to her. She went about with her sight-seeing, when Christina said that she was tired and did not care to see things, not remembering that when they were alone together Christina had never seemed tired. She laughed and talked till all hours of the night with Joan, when Christina had gone to bed saying that she was sleepy. All had seemed peaceful and normal. Milly was stupefied when, by degrees, a consciousness of a difference in Christina crept upon her.
Christina smiled much, was alert, crisply responsive; but ice was in the smile, the response was galvanized. She was suffering—the realization rushed upon Milly once her innocent eyes were opened, and all her strength went to hiding the suffering. Milly, watching, felt a helpless alarm, really a shyness, gaining upon her in the face of this development. She found Christina sobbing in her room one night when she cut short her talk with Joan and came upon her unexpectedly.
Milly's tender heart rose at a bound over alarm and shyness. But when she ran to her, Christina pushed her fiercely away. "You know! Of course you know! Go back to her if you like her better!"
She was like a frantic child. Milly could have laughed, had not the exhibition in her grave, staunch Christina frightened her too much, made her too terribly sorry and almost ashamed for her.
Later, when Christina, laughing quiveringly at her own folly, yet confessing her own powerlessness before it, put her arms around her neck and begged for forgiveness, Milly in all her soft, humorous reproaches daring now to tease and rally, had yet the chill of a new discovery to reckon with. A weight seemed to have come upon her as she realised how much Christina cared. It was as if Christina had confessed that she cared so much more than she, Milly, could ever do. She had not before thought of their friendship as a responsibility. It was too dear, and silly and pathetic in Christina, but it seemed to manacle her.
She must be very careful to like no Joans too much in the future. Christina protested passionately that she must talk to Joan and love Joan—any number of Joans, young or old, male or female, as much as before, more than before, since now her folly was dissipated by confession; but Milly in her heart knew better than to believe her. She filled Christina's life completely, to the exclusion of any other deep affection, and Christina could never be happy unless her friend's life were equally undivided.
CHAPTER II
DICK
Four years passed, and during them Dick Quentyn had wandered about the world, not at all disconsolately. He spent several seasons with friends in India; he went to Canada and to Japan; when he came home he filled his time largely with shooting and hunting.