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"A lunatic asylum? Certainly not," replied Tims. "Now don't begin crying again, old girl. That's how the trouble began." "Was it?" asked Milly, dreamily. "I thought it was " she paused, frowning before her in the air, as though trying to pursue with her bodily vision some recollection which had flickered across her consciousness only to disappear.
But, Tims, I thought you were going to tea with Tony. Why have you come here?" "Didn't you tell me to come in the postscript of your letter?" Mildred was evidently puzzled. "I don't remember anything about it," she said. "I was frightfully tired when I wrote to you in fact, I went to sleep over the letter; but I can't imagine how I came to say that." Tims was not altogether surprised.
"Don't cry, M.," Tims began repeating in a soft, monotonous voice. "You've got nothing to cry about; your head doesn't ache now. Don't cry." At first it was only by a strong effort that Milly could keep her tear-blinded eyes fixed on the bright medal before her; but soon they became chained to it, as by some attractive force.
Tims's programme happened to be full on the following day, so that it was half-past twelve before she knocked at Milly's door and was admitted. Milly stood in the middle of the room in an attitude of energy, with her small wardrobe lying about her on the floor in ignominious heaps. "Tell me, Tims," said Milly, after the first inquiries, "are those positively all the clothes I possess?"
He ought to have known better than to turn to an oddity like Tims for advice and sympathy. "Whom ought I to go to, then?" he asked, good-humoredly, and looking particularly long as he rose from the depths of the low wicker chair. "A medicine-man with horns and a rattle?"
Then she suddenly raised her head, clapped her hands softly, and cried in a tone of delighted discovery, "Tea!" "Excuse me," she added, taking the cup with a little bow; and in two seconds had helped herself to three lumps of sugar. Tims was surprised, for Milly never took sugar in her tea.
"This is Tims Halvor Halvorsson," said Ingmar, introducing the newcomer to Berger Sven Persson. Sven Persson did not rise, but greeted Halvor with a sweep of the hand, saying, somewhat facetiously: "It is a pleasure to meet so distinguished a personage." Ingmar noisily drew up a chair for Halvor, so that he was spared the embarrassment of replying.
Generally speaking, when Tims had uttered one of her deepest and truest feelings, she would glance around, suddenly alert and suspicious to surprise the twinkle in her auditor's eye. But in the clear blue of Milly Flaxman's quiet eyes, she had ceased to look for that tormenting twinkle, that spark which seemed destined to dance about her from the cradle to the grave.
I have a theory of disappearing from the sight of men, which would help the desperate much. This Tims was a lad of your own appearance, disposition, history even. I had a feeling that he ought not to die. What a pity we are too wise to yield always to our feelings." "But about your theory, Monsignor?" said Horace. "A theory of disappearing?"
There was no answering movement in the face even when the sleeper at length firmly grasped the pen and suddenly sat up. Tims rose quickly, and then perceived, lying on the writing-board, a directed envelope and a half-finished note to herself.
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