"She must have thought that she owed her first duty to the work, and not to her own home. But I'm sorry for her now."
"So am I. She'll make it up to her mother by staying with her now, I suppose."
"If Lady Vivian wants her. But I should imagine she'd hate the sight of her, almost."
"Tony!"
"Well," Miss Anthony asseverated, almost in tears, "I mean it. I think it's the most dreadful thing I've ever heard of, and the most unkind. And to think how we've all been admiring her for coming to live here, and for going on with the work in spite of being anxious and unhappy about her father! Why, she can't have cared a bit!"
"But she was splendid, in a sort of way," Miss Henderson said, bewildered. "Look how she's worked, and never spared herself, or given herself any rest, not even proper times off for meals. She can't have liked all that."
"I suppose," said Miss Marsh grimly, "that she liked thinking how splendid she was being, and how splendid everybody thought her. It would have been much duller for her to stay at home and do nothing, just because her father asked her to."
There was silence. To hear Miss Vivian reduced by criticism and analysis to the level of an ordinary human being seemed to revolutionize the whole mental outlook of the Hostel.
When Mrs. Bullivant came into the sitting-room, she looked strangely at the disturbed faces. "Dr. Prince seems to have upset you all," she said at last.
"Did you hear what he was saying about Miss Vivian, though?"