"She didn't know or understand. How should she?"
"But I must keep to what she said. And Felix made me promise."
"He had no right. He doesn't know us all, and you do. Say—couldn't you be happy to stay here? Do you want to go to Dr. Bryant's?"
"I don't think I want anything—much—only to do what Sissie told me."
"Not even to stay here?"
She lifted her eyes slowly again. "I'm tired," she said. "I should like to put off—if—but I can't, because of what Sissie said. I mustn't let myself want anything, except what Felix wants."
"You can't be a slave to him all your life."
"I'm only his. Nobody else's."
"Yes, you are. You are ours too. Say you are. Say you mind going, just a little. We shall always be thinking of you. Don't you know you are our little queen—Nan's and mine?"
Lettice smiled quietly, not blushing in her childish freedom from self-consciousness. "O yes, you are all so good, and you all try to spoil me, and, of course, I love you all—" hesitating,—"like you all, I mean."