“That is what we are disputing about. Antony wants to go at once. I want to give one, just one, farewell dance before shutting myself up for months. I wish you could have seen Antony’s face when I proposed it. I just wish you could! It was awful! He said ‘No,’ and he stood on ‘No,’ and nothing short of an earthquake could have moved him. I simply hate Antony, when he is so ugly; and I told him I hated him.”
“But it is not right to dance and feast when your child is so ill, Rose.”
“My baby is no worse than other babies in the same condition. I am so weary of all the trouble. I feel like running away and hiding myself from every one. I wish I were in some place where Antony, and mamma, and Harry, and every one, could not be perpetually saying, ‘You must not do this,’ or, ‘You must do that.’ The other day I heard of a heavenly land, where the sun always shines, and the flowers always bloom, and loving and dancing and singing and feasting make up the whole of life.”
“Oh, Rose! Rose! That is a very earthly land, indeed.”
“A woman has no youth in this country. And I shall only be a very little time young now. I do grudge spending my young days in gloom, and sorrow, and scolding. It is too bad. If I should fly away to some wilderness, would you take care of my baby, Yanna?”
“What nonsense are you talking, Rose?”
“Of course, it is nonsense; and yet I might die—or commit suicide—or something. If anything happened to you, I would take little Harry and make him my very own. Would you take little Emma if anything happened to me? I might die.”
“My dear Rose, you are not likely to die.”
“I know I am not—but things happen.”