Susie was indignant at this intention. She saw in it a still more cold-blooded aspect than that which it really bore, and John had no sooner gone than she felt herself a sort of accomplice exposing him to a terrible ordeal for no rational end: for to Susie’s softer nature the dispelling of John’s dream, if it should be dispelled, was in itself an evil, not, as his mother thought, an advantage. The two days which she had arranged to stay behind him seemed long to her, a lingering delay, in which harm that she might have prevented was perhaps being done. She was eager to start, to go to the succour of the poor boy whose castles in the air were perhaps cast down by this time, and his trust betrayed. And why should his dream-castles have been demolished? They did nobody any harm, and they kept his heart warm. Susie said to herself that she would like to have somebody to believe in, of whom she could always be sure that they liked and remembered her. Even if they should never do her any good, if they did not like her enough for any practical advantage, still to believe in them as poor John had done in his Edgeley friends, would be a pleasant thing. Susie’s life had not been gay. She was neither discontented nor did she complain: neither the one nor other were in her nature; but she said to herself that if she had friends like John’s friends she would take good care not to put their devotion to any severe test. She would not try them whether they were true or not, but would believe they were true, and cling to that faith as long as they took no steps to convince her of the contrary. Some people think it is best to know the truth at all hazards. She had no such disastrous curiosity. She would have been content to believe.