To take off the edge, as she afterward expressed it, she sat for three minutes with them, talking chaff with Millard, and when she had set the conversation going about indifferent things, she remembered something that had to be done in the kitchen, and was instantly gone down-stairs.
The conversation ran by its own momentum for a while after Agatha's departure, and then it flagged.
"You're going away," said Millard after a pause.
"Yes."
"I know it is rude for me to call without permission, but I couldn't bear that you should leave until I had asked your forgiveness for things that I can never forgive myself for."
Phillida looked down a moment in agitation and then said, "I have nothing to forgive. The fault was all on my side. I have been very foolish."
"I wouldn't quarrel with you for the world," said Millard, "but the fault was mine. What is an error of judgment in a person of your noble unselfishness! Fool that I was, not to be glad to bear a little reproach for such a person as you are!"
To Phillida the world suddenly changed color while Charley was uttering these words. His affection was better manifested by what he had just said than if he had formally declared it. But the fixed notion that he was moved only by pity could not be vanquished in an instant.
"Charley," she said, "it is very good of you to speak such kind words to me. I am very weak, and you are very good-hearted to wish to comfort me."
"You are quite mistaken, Phillida. You fancy that I am disinterested. I tell you now that I am utterly in love with you. Without you I don't care for life. I have not had heart for any pursuit since that evening on which we parted on account of my folly. But if you tell me that you have ceased to care for me, there is nothing for me but to go and make the best of things."