Before I had an opportunity to talk the incident over with Sarah, she had seen Cecelia.
"She is perfectly furious with you," she reported. "She hasn't heard from Mr. Mills since, and she thinks it is on your account; that you have taken steps for breaking it off."
"Well, if she admits there was something to break off ... I tell you, Sarah, you are fretting yourself to no purpose, the girl had been there before."
"I'm afraid so." Sarah's taking it so much to heart was a credit to her, but I was more curious than commiserating.
"Tell me, what is in the mind of a girl when she does things like that? What does she get out of it?"
"Excitement, of course; the sense of being in the stir, and the feeling of being protected. She says Mr. Mills has been kind to her. It is odd, but she seems to think it is all right so long as it is going on; it is only when it is broken off she can't bear it. That is why she is so angry at you."
"There might be something in that," I conceded. "When it is broken off she is able to realize how cheap and temporary it has been; while it is going on she can justify it on the ground that it is going on forever. That would justify it, I suppose." I did not know how I knew this, but lately I had discovered in myself capacities for understanding a great many things of which I had had no experience. What concerned me was not Cecelia's relation to the incident.
"Whatever am I going to do about going there again, to Pauline's, I mean?"
"You can't tell!"
"And I can't go there and not tell. I've got to choose between deceiving Pauline and condoning Henry, and I've no disposition to do either." Sarah thought it over.