“My dear Millie!... our year isn’t up—nearly.”
“What does it matter about your year? Better to break your year than to have us all at one another’s throats—miserable. And then perhaps after all to lose Philip.”
“Lose Philip?”
“Yes. He’ll go back to Russia.”
The words flashed before Katherine’s eyes like lightning through the garden. Her heart gave a furious jump and then stopped.
“Why do you think he’d do that?” she asked at last. “Do you think he doesn’t love me?”
“No, it’s because he loves you so much that he’d do it. Because he’d rather have none of you than only a bit of you, rather have none of you than share you with us.” She turned round, staring into Katherine’s eyes. “Oh, I understand him so well! I believe I’m the only one in all the family who does! You think that I’m not grown up yet, that I know nothing about life, that I don’t know what people do or think, but I believe that I do know better than anyone! And, after all, it’s Philip himself that’s made me see! He understands now what he’s got to give up if he marries you—all his dreams, all his fun, all his travels, all his imagination. You don’t want to give up anything, Katie. You want to keep all this, Garth and the sea, even the oldest old man and woman in the place, above all, you want to keep all of us, mother most of all. You know that mother hates Philip and will always make him unhappy, but still you think that it’s fair that you should give up nothing and he everything. But you’re up against more than Philip, Katie—you’re up against all his imagination that won’t let him alone however much he wants it to—and then,” Millie finally added, turning her eyes back to the other garden—“There’s the other woman.”
“Why!” Katherine cried—“You know?... Who told you?”
“And you know?” cried Millie. “He told you after all?”
“But who told you?” Katherine insisted, her hand on Millie’s shoulder.