Lady Brent received it much as she might have received notice from a servant, whose temporary dissatisfaction with her place must not be taken too seriously. "Why do you want to do that?" she asked, in a level, even a kindly voice.
It touched some chord in Mrs. Brent. She had, perhaps, prepared herself for a peremptory refusal, and if it had come she would have been ready to combat it, and obstinate to push her determination through. But supposing her request should, after all, be granted! That would put everything right and save a lot of trouble.
All the irritation she had been piling up against Lady Brent would be dissolved. She did not want to quarrel with her, if it could be avoided. She would have to go on living with her, whether she had a short respite now or not. And it had not always been so very disagreeable to live with her.
"Oh, I must, I really must," she said. "I can't stand it any longer. Just a week! I'll go and see my mother, and be as quiet as possible. Harry needn't know I'm going to her, if you don't want him to, though I don't see what difference it would make."
"I think I do," said Lady Brent quietly. "But perhaps you'd better sit down, and talk it over. What is it you can't stand any longer? If there's anything wrong here we ought to be able to put it right. Only I must first know what it is."
Mrs. Brent sat down. She saw that her appeal had been a mistake. She could not now coldly state her intention and support it against opposition, behaving as one stately lady towards another, as she had pictured it to herself, coming up the staircase. And of course Lady Brent did not mean to let her go, if she could help it.
She sat down in a high-backed Carolean chair. "I don't want to go into all that," she said stiffly. "I shall be able to stand it all right when I come back. A little holiday is what I really want, and what I mean to have. It's not much to ask, after nearly eighteen years. Well, I say ask—but I'm not asking. I'm just telling you that I'm going away on Thursday, or perhaps Friday, and I shall come back in a week—or ten days."
It was not quite the address of one stately lady to another, but it seemed to have served its turn. Lady Brent turned back to her writing-table and took up her rimmed spectacles.
"Very well," she said.
Mrs. Brent sat in her high-backed chair, looking at her. She placed her spectacles upon her well-shaped nose, and took up her pen. Then she said, as calmly as before: "If you tell me you are going there is no more to be said. I'll finish what I'm doing now, before luncheon."