"Oh I don't want to deprive you of it," cried Millie, suddenly flinging her arms round the fat, red-faced woman, "only I don't want you to go and do anything foolish—like marrying Mr. Bennett for instance."
"Now, why shouldn't I marry Mr. Bennett? Suppose I'm in love with him—madly. Isn't it something in these days when there are so many old maids to have a month of love even if he beats one all the rest of one's days? And anyway I've got the purse—I could keep him in check. . . . No, that's a nasty way of talking. And I'm certainly not in love with Bennett, nor with Mereward neither. I don't suppose I'll ever be in love with any one again."
"You're lucky!" Millie broke out. "Oh, you are indeed! It isn't happy to be in love. It's miserable."
Indeed she was unhappy. She could not have believed that she would ever allow herself to be swung into such a swirl of emotions as were hers now. At one moment she hated him, feeling herself bound ignobly, surrendering weakly all that was best in herself; at such a moment she determined that she would be entirely frank with him, insisting on his own frankness, challenging him to tell her everything that he was, as she now knew, keeping back from her . . . then she loved him so that she wanted only his company, only to be with him, to hear him laugh, to see him happy, and she would accept any tie (knowing in her heart that it was a lie) if it would keep him with her and cause him to love her. That he did love her through all his weakness she was truly aware: it was that awareness that chained her to him.
Very strange the part that Ellen played in all this. That odd woman made no further demonstrations of affection; she was always now ironically sarcastic, hurting Millie when she could, and she knew, as no one else in the place did, the way to hurt her. Because of her Bunny came now much less to the house.
"I can't stand that sneering woman," he said, "and she loathes me."
Millie tried to challenge her.
"Why do you hate Bunny?" she asked. "He's never done you any harm."
"Hasn't he?" Ellen answered smiling.
"No, what harm has he done you?"