“It’s only about Katie I’m thinking,” he answered doggedly. “It may, after all, be true what Aunt Aggie said, that it will be much better for her in the end for the thing to be broken off, even though it hurts her now.” “Better for her!” cried Millie scornfully. “Don’t you know that, however deeply she loved Philip when it all began, it’s nothing to the way that she loves him now?... Of course now there’ll be a scene. Philip will be turned off for ever and—” She broke off, then said, staring at Henry: “Supposing, after all, Katie were to go with him!” Henry shook his head. “She’d never do that, however much Philip is to her. Why, it would mean giving up Garth and us for ever! Mother would never forgive her! After all, she’s only known Philip six months, and I heard her say the other day in London she loves Garth more than ever. And even if Mother _did_ forgive her, in the end she’d never be able to come back here as one of us again. You and I will love her whatever she does, but Mother and Father and the aunts ... I believe it would simply kill them—” “I’m not so sure,” said Millie slowly, “that Mother thinks that. I believe she’s half afraid of Philip running off and then Katie following him. That’s why she’s been so nice to him lately, although she can’t bear him. Of course if she knew all this that we know he’d _have_ to go—she wouldn’t have him in the house five minutes, and Father would do what Mother told him of course. And now that you’ve been an idiot enough to tell Aunt Aggie, it’s all up.... The only hope is that Katie will chuck it all and follow him!” “What!” cried Henry aghast. “You’d like her to!” “Why, of course,” said Millie, “there isn’t anything compared with the sort of thing Katie feels for Philip—Home and the family? Why, they’ve all _got_ to go in these days! That’s what people like the aunts and fathers and the rest of the old fogeys round here don’t see. But they’ll _have_ to see soon.... But mother’s cleverer than they are. At least she is about Katie, because she loves her so much.” “My word!” said Henry, in the husky voice that always came when he admired anybody. “You’ve changed an awful lot lately, Millie.” “Yes, I suppose I have,” she answered, complacently. They talked very little after that, for the reason that in the village Henry bought Millie some bulls-eyes, because he felt in a confused kind of way that he admired her more than he had ever done.