"Oh, I suppose it was rather thoughtless of me. No, it wouldn't be right. We'll curry it."
She went upstairs for her afternoon sleep, and left him with less confidence for the future.
A drowsy peace settled on the house. Edward Webb, too, had a nap. Grace read demurely in the breakfast-room, and Theresa sat on the kitchen fender when Bessie, having washed up the dinner things by a miracle of speed, had emerged to the light of day. Theresa always tried to catch a glimpse of her on these occasions, for she could never feel that this was the same person who, moving amid dimness, clad in drab colours, besmirched with black, had cooked the breakfast; for on Sunday and the weekly night out she seemed to leave herself in her bedroom and bring forth a cruder creature, gowned in bright blue, and shadowless. Theresa felt that she did not know this person, that the real Bessie was upstairs in her room, and she pictured a being without body, but with the form of it, as much like a skeleton leaf as a human being could be, sitting on the edge of the bed until the blue girl should return. And when dusk fell she avoided the topmost landing of the tall house, for she was afraid of what Bessie had left up there.
This afternoon Theresa escorted her to the door. "Are you going to have tea with Bill?" she asked.
"Yes; but I'm going to Sunday-school first."
"Is it nice there?"
"Most times."
"Could I come with you some day?"
"You'll 'ave to ask your mother."
"I wish I could go to Sunday-school. Why don't we?"