“But the thought must have been in your mind!”
“I only meant that you needn’t repel or avoid him, as you have done of late.”
Millicent felt compassionate. After all, Mrs. Gladwyne was pleading for what she believed would benefit her only son; but the girl was very human and a trace of her resentment remained. It was, however, obvious that Mrs. Gladwyne expected some response.
“I can venture to promise that I won’t be openly rude,” Millicent agreed with a faint smile.
“Can’t you go a little beyond that, my dear?”
The girl, seeing the look in her eyes, yielded to an impulse which prompted her to candor.
“What there is to be said had better be spoken now,” she replied. “I have confessed that I knew what was expected—Clarence showed that he knew it, too—and the idea was not altogether repugnant to me. But since he came back from Canada there has been a change in both of us. How or why I can’t explain, but we have drifted apart. I don’t know whether this will go on—I don’t understand myself—I only know that I am as anxious for his welfare as I always have been. It must be left to him; there is nothing you must urge me to do.”
Mrs. Gladwyne looked regretful, but she made a sign of acquiescence and rising came toward the girl and took her hand.
“What I could do I have done—badly perhaps,” she said. “I can’t blame you. I am only sorry.”
She went out in a few minutes and left Millicent in a thoughtful mood. Looking back on the past, the girl recognized that she had been fond of Clarence—which was the best word for it—and that she would have married him had he urged it. He had, however, hardly been in a position to do so then, and she remembered that she had in no way regretted the fact. This was, she thought, significant. Then the change had gradually come about. She saw his faults more clearly and it grew increasingly difficult to believe that she could eradicate them. What was more, during the past few weeks she had once or twice felt scornfully angry with him. She had tried not to yield to the sensation, and now she wondered how it had originated and why she was less tolerant.