Mildred appeared to be overcome by shyness.
Emmie had divined that the girl had some small trouble of which she wanted to speak. But she was entirely unprepared for the actual fact. Knowing that the young Parkers were rather too fond of cards, even games of chance, she had guessed that Mildred had burned her fingers at poker and needed a small loan to tide over an awkward blank till her dress allowance became due. Seeing Mildred’s confusion, she patted and caressed her, and further to encourage her firmly promised help.
But it was far more than a game of cards. It was love. Love, as Mildred confessed, had come upon her “like a thunder-clap.”
Emmie drew in her breath, and sighed.
Mildred told the tale of how she had fallen desperately in love with a man; how her parents forbade her to love him, forbade her to meet him, forbade her to think of him; how Mr. Parker threatened her, bullied her, vowing he would take steps to separate her irrevocably from her beloved; and how, in consequence, that once comfortable house in Ennismore Gardens had become a place of torment and pain.
Listening, Emmie was stirred profoundly. As though the accident of those retrospective thoughts in which she had just been indulging had rendered her abnormally sensitive to emotion, she thrilled and quivered to the shock of Mildred’s words. It seemed to her that she was hearing her own story from the lips of this innocent girl. It seemed to her that these obdurate parents who threatened and ordered and could not understand were Mr. and Mrs. Verinder, not Mr. and Mrs. Parker; that it was all in the past, not in the present; that the end of the story had been reached ages and ages ago, when the daughter walked out of the home that had become a prison-house and never came back again.
But Mildred was going on; assuring Emmie that she was very much in earnest. “It’s no silliness—or infatuation, as mother says.... It’s the real thing.”
Then soon she said words so startling that they almost took Emmie’s breath away.
“I would have you to know also that the man I’ve fallen in love with is very famous.”
Emmie sat staring at her intently. The thing had become fantastic, like a dream.