He nodded. “You’d better take the sleeper. The eighty-thirty from Upton will make it.”
“Can you—?”
“Not with things the way they are here.”
Then they all scattered, to do the things that had to be done. Elliott was helping Laura pack the suit-case when she had her idea. It really was a wonderful idea for a girl who had never in her life put herself out for any one else. Like a flash the first part of it came to her, without thought of a sequel; and the words were out of her mouth almost before she was aware she had thought them.
“You ought to go, Laura!” she cried. “Sidney is your twin.”
“I’d like to go.” Something in the guarded tone, something deep and intense and controlled, struck Elliott to consternation. 219 If Laura felt that way about it!
“Why don’t you, Laura? Can’t you possibly?”
The other shook her head. “Mother is the one to go. If we both went, who would keep house here?”
For a fraction of a second Elliott hesitated. “I would.”
The words once spoken, fairly swept her out of herself. All her little prudences and selfishnesses and self-distrusts went overboard together. Her cheeks flamed. She dropped the brush and comb she was packing and dashed out of the room.