“I don’t want to argue,” Sophia said angrily. “Please leave the room.”
Amy obeyed. She was cowed, in addition to being staggered.
To the persons involved in it, this episode was intensely dramatic. Sophia had surmised that Constance permitted liberties of speech to Amy; she had even guessed that Amy sometimes took licence to be rude. But that the relations between them were such as to allow the bullying of Constance by an Amy downright insolent—this had shocked and wounded Sophia, who suddenly had a vision of Constance as the victim of a reign of terror. “If the creature will do this while I’m here,” said Sophia to herself, “what does she do when they are alone together in the house?”
“Well,” she exclaimed, “I never heard of such goings-on! And you let her talk to you in that style! My dear Constance!”
Constance was sitting up in bed, the small tea-tray on her knees. Her eyes were moist. The tears had filled them when she knew that there was no letter. Ordinarily the failure of Cyril’s letter would not have made her cry, but weakness had impaired her self-control. And the tears having once got into her eyes, she could not dismiss them. There they were!
“She’s been with me such a long time,” Constance murmured. “She takes liberties. I’ve corrected her once or twice.”
“Liberties!” Sophia repeated the word. “Liberties!”
“Of course I really ought not to allow it,” said Constance. “I ought to have put a stop to it long since.”
“Well,” said Sophia, rather relieved by this symptom of Constance’s secret mind, “I do hope you won’t think I’m meddlesome, but truly it was too much for me. The words were out of my mouth before I——” She stopped.
“You were quite right, quite right,” said Constance, seeing before her in the woman of fifty the passionate girl of fifteen.