Lois walked over to her and kissed her. She took Phil's face in her hands, looking into her eyes steadily.
"You dear chick, you would care!"
"Oh, you mustn't! You must not!" Phil cried. "And you have been thinking of it and not telling me! And just when I thought we understood everything."
"I meant to tell you to-day: I really did. It wasn't easy. But I've got to go, Phil. I'm not sure that I haven't stayed too long! You know I never meant to stay forever."
"Then you haven't been happy here! You don't—you don't like me!"
Lois sank into a chair by the window and drew the girl down beside her. Phil gripped her mother's hands tight, and stared into her face with tear-filled eyes.
"It's as hard for me as it is for you, Phil. But we may as well have it out. I've taken passage for the first Saturday in June, and it's not far off. Some friends are spending the summer in Switzerland and I'm going to join them. It was half-understood when I came here."
"It's hard; it's unkind," Phil whispered. The fact that her mother had planned flight so long ahead did not mitigate the hurt of it. Nothing, it seemed, could ever be right in this world! And she had just effected all the difficult readjustments made necessary by her mother's return! She had given herself so unreservedly to this most wonderful of women! Lois was touched by her show of feeling.
"I'm sorry," she said, stroking Phil's brown head. "I have had thoughts of taking you with me. That would be easy enough—" she paused uncertainly, as the clasp of Phil's hands tightened. "But, Phil, I have no right to do that. It wouldn't be for your happiness in the end; I know that; I'm sure of that."
"Oh, if you only would! I'll be very good—a lot nicer than you think I am if you will take me."