"I'm not sentimental," said Henry indignantly. "But I know my sister better than you know her."
"You may know your sister," Mary retorted, "but you don't know anything about women. They must have something to look after. If you take one thing away, they'll find something else. It's their only religion, and it's the religion they want, not the prophets."
She added: "Millie is far more interested in life than I am. She is enchanted by it. Nothing and nobody will stop her excitement about it. Nobody will ever keep her back from it. She'll go on to her death standing up in the middle of it, tossing it around——
"You're like her in that, but you'll never see life as it really is. She will. And she'll face it all——"
"What a lot you think you know," said Henry.
"Yes, I know Millie."
"But she's terribly unhappy."
"And so she will be—until she's found some one more unhappy than herself. But even unhappiness is part of the excitement of life to her."
After a dreamless night he awoke to a sudden consciousness that Millie, Clare Westcott and Christina were in his room. He stirred, raising his head very gently and seemed to catch the shadow of Christina's profile in the grey light of the darkened window.
He sat up and, bending over to his chair where his watch lay, saw that it was nine o'clock. As he sprang out of bed, King entered with breakfast and an aggrieved expression. "Knocked a hour ago, sir, and you hanswered," he said.