Intimacy grows fast when people are thus united by a common anxiety,
sharing the same hopes and fears day after day, speaking and thinking of
the same thing. The gay young officer at Nice, who had counted so little
in Katy's world, seemed to have disappeared, and the gentle,
considerate, tender-hearted fellow who now filled his place was quite a
different person in her eyes. Katy began to count on Ned Worthington as
a friend who could be trusted for help and sympathy and comprehension,
and appealed to and relied upon in all emergencies. She was quite at
ease with him now, and asked him to do this and that, to come and help
her, or to absent himself, as freely as if he had been Dorry or Phil.
He, on his part, found this easy intimacy charming. In the reaction of
his temporary glamour for the pretty Lilly, Katy's very difference from
her was an added attraction. This difference consisted, as much as
anything else, in the fact that she was so truly in earnest in what she
said and did. Had Lilly been in Katy's place, she would probably have
been helpful to Mrs. Ashe and kind to Amy so far as in her lay; but the
thought of self would have tinctured all that she did and said, and the
need of keeping to what was tasteful and becoming would have influenced
her in every emergency, and never have been absent from her mind.
Katy, on the contrary, absorbed in the needs of the moment, gave little
heed to how she looked or what any one was thinking about her.
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