"Hullo, old girl!" she cried, blind to the serious scene into which she was precipitated. "How are you? Now don't kiss me"—throwing herself into an attitude of violent defence against an embrace not yet offered—"I'm too hot. Carried my bag myself all the way from the station and saved the omnibus."
Lady Thomson fixed Tims with a look of more than usually cold disapproval. Milly proffered a constrained greeting.
"Anything gone wrong?" asked Tims, after a minute, peering at Milly's tear-stained eyes with her own short-sighted ones.
Milly answered with a forced self-restraint which appeared like cold deliberation.
"Aunt Beatrice thinks I'm mad because I say I'm not the same person she found in my place last March. I want you to tell her that it's not just my fancy, but that you know that sometimes a quite different person takes my place, and I'm not responsible for anything she says or does."
"Yes, that's a solemn Gospel fact, right enough," affirmed Tims.
Lady Thomson could hardly control her indignation, but she did, although she spoke sternly to Tims.
"Do I understand you to say, Miss Timson, that it's a 'solemn Gospel fact'—Gospel! Good Heavens—that Milly is possessed by a devil?"
Tims plumped down on the sofa and stared at Lady Thomson.
"Possessed by a devil? Good Lord, no! What do you mean?"