Not only did he make no sign, but he seemed to withdraw, silently and surely, all his supports.

Barbara discovered that the company of Mary Adams did in very truth make everything that was not sure and certain absurd and impossible.

There was visible no longer, as there had been before, that country wherein anything was possible, where wonderful things had occurred and where wonderful things would surely occur again.
"You're pretending," said Mary Adams sharply when Barbara ventured some possibly extravagant version of some ordinary occurrence, or suggested that events, rich and wonderful, had occurred during the night.
"Nonsense," said Mary sharply.
She said "nonsense" as though it were the very foundation of her creed of life--as, indeed, to the end of her days, it was.

What, then, was Barbara to do?
Her friend would not come, although passionately she begged and begged and begged that he would.

Mary Adams was there every day, sharp, and shining, and resolved, demanding the whole of Barbara Flint, body and soul--nothing was to be kept from her, nothing.