"I'll tell you one day."
"I hate these mysteries," Millie cried. "Once you asked to be my friend. Now——"
"Now?" repeated Ellen.
"You seem to want to hurt me any way you can."
Ellen had a habit of standing stiff against the wall, her heels together, her head back as though she were being measured for her height.
"Perhaps I don't like to see you so happy when I'm unhappy myself."
Millie came to her.
"Why are you unhappy, Ellen? I hate you to be. I do like you. I do want to be your friend if you'll let me. I offended you somehow in the early days. You've never forgiven me for it. But I don't even now know what I did."
Ellen walked away. Suddenly she turned.
"What," she said, "can people like you know about people like us, how we suffer, how we hate ourselves, how we are thirstier and thirstier and for ever unsatisfied. . . . No, I don't mean you any harm. I'll save you from Baxter, though. You're too pretty. . . . You can escape even though I can't."