"What do you mean? I was speaking of my visit to you in March."
"And don't you see the difference? Oh, how hateful you must have found me!"
"Really, Mildred, I saw nothing hateful about you. On the contrary, if you want the plain truth, I greatly prefer you in a cheerful, common-sense mood, as you were then, even if your high spirits do lead you into a little too much frivolity. I think it a more wholesome, and therefore ultimately a more useful, frame of mind than this causeless depression, which leads you to take such a morbid, exaggerated view of things."
Every word pierced Milly's heart with a double pang.
"You liked her better than me?" she asked, piteously. "Yet I've always tried to be just what you wanted me to be, Aunt Beatrice, to do everything you thought right, and she—Oh, it's too awful!"
"What do you mean, Mildred?"
"I mean that the person you prefer to me as I am now, the person who was here in March, wasn't I at all."
The fine healthy carnation of Lady Thomson's cheek paled. In her calm, rapid way she at once found the explanation of Milly's unhealthy, depressed appearance and manner. Poor Mildred Stewart was insane. Beyond the paling of her cheek, however, Lady Thomson allowed no sign of shock to be visible in her.
"That's an exaggerated way of talking," she replied. "I suppose you mean your mood was different."
Milly was looking straight in front of her with haggard eyes.