THE WINGS OF THE DOVE
The effect of it by this time was fairly, as intended, to sustain Susie who dropped in spite of herself into the reassuring. "Most certainly it's all right. I think you ought to understand that he sees no reason———"
"Why I shouldn't have a grand long life?" Milly had taken it straight up as if to understand it and for a moment consider it. But she disposed of it otherwise. "Oh, of course, I know that." She spoke as if her friend's point were small.
Mrs. Stringham tried to enlarge it. "Well, what I mean is that he didn't say to me anything that he hasn't said to yourself."
"Really?—I would in his place." She might have been disappointed, but she had her good humour. "He tells me to live"—and she oddly limited the word.
It left Susie a little at sea. "Then what do you want more?"
"My dear," the girl presently said, "I don't 'want,' as I assure you, anything. Still," she added, "I am living. Oh yes, I'm living."
It put them again face to face, but it had wound Mrs. Stringham up. "So am I then, you'll see!"—she spoke with the note of her recovery. Yet it was her wisdom now—meaning by it as much as she did—not to say more than that. She had risen by Milly's aid to a certain command of what was before them; the ten minutes of their talk had, in fact, made her more distinctly aware of the presence in her mind
116
