Tims, legitimately absorbed in her own feelings, did not notice it. She continued:
"I dare say the world will say Mr. Fitzalan had an eye on my money; and it's true I've done pretty well with my investments. But, bless you! he hadn't a notion of that. You see, I was brought up to be stingy, and I enjoy it. He thought of course I was a pauper, and proposed we should pauper along together. He was quite upset when he found I was an heiress. Wasn't it sweet of him?"
Mildred said it was.
"Flora Fitzalan!" breathed Tims, clasping her hands and smiling into space. "Isn't it a pretty name? It's always been my dream to have a pretty name." Then suddenly, as though in a flash seeing all those personal disadvantages which she usually contrived to ignore:
"Life's a queer lottery, Mil, my girl. We know what we are, we know not what we shall be, as old Billy says. Who'd ever have thought that a nice, quiet girl like Milly, marrying the lad of her heart and all that, would come to such awful grief; while look at me—a queer kind of girl you'd have laid your bottom dollar wouldn't have much luck, prospering like anything, well up in the Science business, and now, what's ever so much better, scrumptiously happy with a good sort of her own. Upon my word, Mil, I've half a mind to fetch old M. back to sympathize with me, for although you've said a peck of nice things, I don't believe you understand what I'm feeling the way the old girl would."
Mildred went a little pale and spoke quickly.
"You won't do that really, Tims? You won't be so cruel to—to every one?"
"I don't know. I don't see why you're always to be jolly and have everything your own way. Oh, Lord! When I think how happy old M. was when she was engaged, the same as I am, and then on her wedding-day—just the same as I shall be on mine."
Mildred straightened out the frill of a muslin cushion cover, her head bent.
"Just so. She had everything her own way that time. I gave her that happiness, it was all my doing. She's had it and she ought to be content. Don't be a fool, Tims—" she lifted her face and Tims was startled by its expression—"Can't you see how hard it is on me never to be allowed the happiness you've got and Milly's had? Don't you think I might care to know what love is like for myself? Don't you think I might happen to want—I tell you I'm a million times more alive than Milly—and I want—I want everything a million times more than she does."