"Oh! I've known about it for a long time," said Gertie without pride. "I told Milly just now, before I went out. Everybody will know soon." Lilian felt a pang of jealousy. "It means a terrible operation," Gertie added.
"But she oughtn't to be here!" Lilian exclaimed.
"No!" Gertie agreed with a surprising sternness that somewhat altered Lilian's estimate of her. "No! And she isn't going to be here, either! Not if I know it! I shall see that she gets back home at lunch-time. She's quarrelled already with Mr. Grig this morning about her coming up."
"Do you mean at home they quarrelled?"
"Yes. He got so angry that he said if she came he wouldn't. He was quite right to be angry, of course. But she came all the same."
"Miss G. must have told Gertie all that herself," Lilian reflected. "She'd never be as confidential with me. She'd never tell me anything!" And she had a queer feeling of inferiority.
"We must do all we can to help things," said Gertie.
"Of course!" agreed Lilian, suddenly softened, overcome by a rush of sympathy and a strong impulse to behave nobly, beautifully, forgivingly towards Miss G.
Nevertheless, though it was Gertie's attitude that had helped to inspire her, she still rather disdained the virtuous senior. Lilian appreciated profoundly--perhaps without being able to put her feeling into words--the heroic madness of Miss G. in defying common sense and her brother for the sake of the beloved business. But Gertie saw in Miss G.'s act nothing but a piece of naughty and sick foolishness. To Lilian Miss G. in her superficial yearning softness became almost a terrible figure, a figure to be regarded with awe, and to serve as an exemplar. But in contemplating Miss G. Lilian uneasily realized her own precariousness. Miss G. was old and plain (save that her eyes had beauty), and yet was fulfilling her great passion and was imposing herself on her environment. Miss G. was doing. Lilian could only be; she would always remain at the mercy of someone, and the success which she desired could last probably no longer than her youth and beauty. The transience of the gifts upon which she must depend frightened her--but at the same time intensified anew her resolves. She had not a moment to lose. And Gertie, standing there close to her, sweet and reliable and good, in the dull cage, amid the daily circumstances of their common slavery, would have understood nothing of Lilian's obscure emotion.
III