"Where would you live if I went away?" she asked.
"What do you mean?" said May, looking very much alarmed by the prospect, and turning sharply on her pillow.
"I mean who would you live with? Alfie or Edie?"
"Neither," May affirmed emphatically.
"Why not?"
"Because I wouldn't."
This reply, however unsatisfactory it might have been to a logician, was to Jenny the powerfullest imaginable.
"But supposing I got married?" she went on.
"Well, couldn't I live with you? No, I suppose I couldn't," said May dejectedly. "I'm a lot of good, ain't I? Yes, you grumble sometimes, but what about if you was like me?"
Jenny had always accepted May's cheerfulness under physical disability so much as a matter of fact that a complaint from her came with a shock. More than ever did the best course for May seem the right course for Jenny. She recalled how years ago her mother had intrusted May to her when a child. How much more sacred and binding was that trust now that she who imposed it was dead.