They rode a little way in silence; Ruth did not know how to speak, what to say; and then Mildred began to talk, finding relief in saying things long held in. Ruth understood that so well. Oh, she understood it all so well--the whole tumult of it, the confused thinking, the joy, the passion,--the passion that would sacrifice anything, that would let the whole world go. Here it was again. She knew just what it was. "So you can see," Mildred was saying, "what you have meant to me." Yes, she could see that. They were driving along the crest of the hills back of the town. Mildred pointed to it. "That town isn't the whole of the world!" she exclaimed passionately, after speaking of the feeling that was beginning to form there against herself. "What do I care?" she demanded defiantly. "It's not the whole of the world!" Ruth looked at it. She could see the Lawrence house--it had a high place and was visible from all around; Mildred's home was not far from there; her own old home was only a block farther on. She had another one of those flashing pictures from things far back: Mrs. Woodbury--Mildred's mother--standing at the door with a bowl of chicken broth for Mrs. Holland--Ruth's mother--who was ill. "I thought maybe this would taste good," she could hear Mrs. Woodbury saying. Strange how things one had forgotten came back. Other things came back as for a moment she continued to look at the town where both she and Mildred had been brought up, where their ties were. Then she turned back to Mildred, to this other girl who, claimed by passionate love, was in the mood to let it all go. "But that's just what it is, Mildred," she said. "The trouble is, it _is_ the whole of the world." "It's the whole of the social world," she answered the look of surprise. "It's just the same everywhere. And it's astonishing how united the world is. You give it up in one place--you've about given it up for every place." "Then the whole social world's not worth it!" broke from Mildred. "It's not worth--enough."