“Meg, if you start in your honest-English vein, I shall throw the treacle at you.”
“It’s a better vein than the cosmopolitan,” said Margaret, getting up. “Now, children, which is it to be? You know the Ducie Street house. Shall I say yes or shall I say no? Tibby love—which? I’m specially anxious to pin you both.”
“It all depends what meaning you attach to the word ‘possi—’”
“It depends on nothing of the sort. Say ‘yes.’”
“Say ‘no.’”
Then Margaret spoke rather seriously. “I think,” she said, “that our race is degenerating. We cannot settle even this little thing; what will it be like when we have to settle a big one?”
“It will be as easy as eating,” returned Helen.
“I was thinking of Father. How could he settle to leave Germany as he did, when he had fought for it as a young man, and all his feelings and friends were Prussian? How could he break loose with Patriotism and begin aiming at something else? It would have killed me. When he was nearly forty he could change countries and ideals—and we, at our age, can’t change houses. It’s humiliating.”
“Your father may have been able to change countries,” said Mrs. Munt with asperity, “and that may or may not be a good thing. But he could change houses no better than you can, in fact, much worse. Never shall I forget what poor Emily suffered in the move from Manchester.”
“I knew it,” cried Helen. “I told you so. It is the little things one bungles at. The big, real ones are nothing when they come.”