The implication that sheer selfishness only made her hold out against this scheme struck Eleanor as being distinctly funny.
"But I don't suppose for a minute there is going to be much enjoyment for me at Seabourne," Eleanor protested. "Mrs. Danvers said I must be prepared to work pretty hard."
"Well, I shall like that as long as it is not lessons," Margaret said quickly. "Why, even to see other people and to watch them, and to listen to them talking will be enjoyment for me. And think of Madame Martelli and the singing lessons."
"I am thinking of them," Eleanor returned desperately, "and I am trying hard not to." Then all of a sudden her resolution gave way. It had been too unequal a fight to last very long, for there were too many forces arrayed against her conscience to give it a fair chance of gaining the day. Margaret's persuasions counted for little really, but the thought of the lessons was, of course, all-powerful with her, and there was, too, a spice of adventure about the scheme that appealed strongly to her high-spirited, mischief-loving nature. "But it's on you that the trouble will fall in the end, Margaret," she warned her. "When we are found out I shall be turned out of the house as an imposter, of course, but that will be all that can happen to me. It's you who will have to bear the brunt of both Mrs. Murray's anger and of your grandfather's."
But be the consequences what they might, Margaret refused to look so far ahead or to consider for a moment the time when the trick they were about to play must inevitably be discovered.
That belonged entirely to the future; it was the present that occupied her mind now, and the keen zest and animation with which she entered into every detail of the scheme, foreseeing and guarding against every obstacle that might wreck it, came as a positive revelation to Eleanor. She could not have believed that Margaret had it in her to plot and plan in such a shrewd, capable manner, and she could only nod her head in acquiescence to most of the suggestions that were made. She was simply swept off her feet by Margaret's impetuosity. And so, carried along by the flood of her eager eloquence and nearly off her head with joy at the intoxicating thought that she was attaining her heart's desire, and that splendid singing lessons were now within measurable distance of her, it was small wonder that her conscience gave up the unequal fight and retired from the field in despair.
"We must change tickets," Margaret announced presently, with the business-like air of one who is determined to overlook no detail, however apparently unimportant, "for you will have to get out at Chailfield, Eleanor, which is three or four stations before we come to Seabourne."
"Very well, yes, I suppose so," Eleanor said somewhat absently. She was deep in consideration as to which opera she should study first with Madame Martelli. The latter would probably wish to take one in which she had scored a success herself, and Eleanor was racking her brain to remember the particular one in which she had read that the gifted singer of past days had made her most signal triumph.
"And oh, Eleanor! what about our clothes? I have never, never thought of them."
There was such a depth of tragic despair in Margaret's voice that it could not but arrest Eleanor's wandering attention.