“I tell you what I’ve been thinking,” said Sophia, folding up her gloves.
“What?” asked Constance, expecting some wonderful solution to come out of Sophia’s active brain.
“There’s no earthly reason why you should go back to Bursley. The house won’t run away, and it’s costing nothing but the rent. Why not take things easy for a bit?”
“And stay here?” said Constance, with an inflection that enlightened Sophia as to the intensity of her dislike of the existence at the Rutland.
“No, not here,” Sophia answered with quick deprecation. “There are plenty of other places we could go to.”
“I don’t think I should be easy in my mind,” said Constance. “What with nothing being settled, the house——”
“What does it matter about the house?”
“It matters a great deal,” said Constance, seriously, and slightly hurt. “I didn’t leave things as if we were going to be away for a long time. It wouldn’t do.”
“I don’t see that anything could come to any harm, I really don’t!” said Sophia, persuasively. “Dirt can always be cleaned, after all. I think you ought to go about more. It would do you good—all the good in the world. And there is no reason why you shouldn’t go about. You are perfectly free. Why shouldn’t we go abroad together, for instance, you and I? I’m sure you would enjoy it very much.”
“Abroad?” murmured Constance, aghast, recoiling from the proposition as from a grave danger.