The fact disturbed Columbine.
Always she had confided in him.

Here was a most complex situation--she burned to tell him, yet somehow feared to--she felt an incomprehensible satisfaction in his bitter reference to Jack--she seemed to realize that she valued Wilson's friendship more than she had known, and now for some strange reason it was slipping from her.
"We--we were such good friends--pards," said Columbine, hurriedly and irrelevantly.
"Who ?" He stared at her.
"Why, you--and me." "Oh!" His tone softened, but there was still disapproval in his glance.
"What of that ?" "Something has happened to make me think I've missed you--lately--that's all." "Ahuh!" His tone held finality and bitterness, but he would not commit himself.

Columbine sensed a pride in him that seemed the cause of his aloofness.
"Wilson, why have you been different lately ?" she asked, plaintively.
"What's the good to tell you now ?" he queried, in reply.
That gave her a blank sense of actual loss.

She had lived in dreams and he in realities.

Right now she could not dispel her dream--see and understand all that he seemed to.