“Wouldn’t you feel like that, in my place?”
“No, I shouldn’t; but that’s neither here nor there. It’s for you to decide whether a practical consideration or a sentimental one weighs most in your own particular case.”
“Sentimental?”
Val’s indignant tone gave the word its least agreeable meaning.
“It is a question of sentiment, isn’t it? Father likes to have you at home, but he’s not dependent upon you in any way.”
“But wouldn’t he say that my place was at home—that it was only restlessness and love of independence...?” Valeria stammered.
She suddenly felt very young beneath the remote, passionless gaze of her sister. For the first time in her life she saw Lucilla as a human being and not as an elder sister, and she was struck with Lucilla’s strange effect of spiritual aloofness. It would be very easy to speak freely to anyone so impersonal as Lucilla.
“It’s ever since I got back from France,” said Val suddenly. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me, exactly, but I’ve ... wanted things. I’ve wanted to work quite hard, at things like cooking, or sweeping—and I’ve been sick of books, and music, and botany. I don’t feel any of it is one scrap worth while. And, oh, Lucilla, it’s such nonsense, because no one wants me to cook or sweep, so I’m just ‘seeking vocations to which I am not called,’ as Father always says. Perhaps it’s just that I want change.”
Lucilla was silent.
“Do say what you think,” Val besought her with some impatience.