“When he was talking to me he did a good deal more than mention it. And I’ve a good mind to tell you what he said.”
“Do!” said Constance, politely.
“You don’t realize how serious it is, I’m afraid,” said Sophia. “You can’t see yourself.” She hesitated a moment. Her blood being stirred by Constance’s peculiar inflection of the phrase ‘my dark house,’ her judgment was slightly obscured. She decided to give Constance a fairly full version of the conversation between herself and the doctor.
“It’s a question of your health,” she finished. “I think it’s my duty to talk to you seriously, and I have done. I hope you’ll take it as it’s meant.”
“Oh, of course!” Constance hastened to say. And she thought: “It isn’t yet three months that we’ve been together, and she’s trying already to get me under her thumb.”
A pause ensued. Sophia at length said: “There’s no doubt that both your sciatica and your palpitations are due to nerves. And you let your nerves get into a state because you worry over trifles. A change would do you a tremendous amount of good. It’s just what you need. Really, you must admit, Constance, that the idea of living always in a place like St. Luke’s Square, when you are perfectly free to do what you like and go where you like—you must admit it’s rather too much.”
Constance put her lips together and bent over her embroidery.
“Now, what do you say?” Sophia gently entreated.
“There’s some of us like Bursley, black as it is!” said Constance. And Sophia was surprised to detect tears in her sister’s voice.
“Now, my dear Constance,” she remonstrated.