Sophia was fidgeting nervously with the edge of her little black apron, and worrying a seam of the carpet with her toes. She bent her head towards her left shoulder, at first smiling vaguely. She said nothing, but every limb, every glance, every curve, was speaking. Mrs. Baines sat firmly in her own rocking-chair, full of the sensation that she had Sophia, as it were, writhing on the end of a skewer. Constance was braced into a moveless anguish.
“I will have an answer,” pursued Mrs. Baines. “What were you doing out in the town this morning?”
“I just went out,” answered Sophia at length, still with eyes downcast, and in a rather simpering tone.
“Why did you go out? You said nothing to me about going out. I heard Constance ask you if you were coming with us to the market, and you said, very rudely, that you weren’t.”
“I didn’t say it rudely,” Sophia objected.
“Yes you did. And I’ll thank you not to answer back.”
“I didn’t mean to say it rudely, did I, Constance?” Sophia’s head turned sharply to her sister. Constance knew not where to look.
“Don’t answer back,” Mrs. Baines repeated sternly. “And don’t try to drag Constance into this, for I won’t have it.”
“Oh, of course Constance is always right!” observed Sophia, with an irony whose unparalleled impudence shook Mrs. Baines to her massive foundations.
“Do you want me to have to smack you, child?”