Hetty sat silent for several moments.
"Well?" she said at last.
"I told him it couldn't be thought of. For one thing, it would cost a good deal of money."
Hetty glanced swiftly at Ingleby, and an older man might have noticed the suppressed intentness in her face.
"I'm afraid Tom is right—though I wish you could come," he said. "When I mentioned it I didn't remember that he isn't very strong and that it must be a very rough country for an Englishwoman. You wouldn't care to live in a log hut forty miles from anywhere, Hetty?"
The girl now looked straight in front of her. "No, I suppose not; but as I shall never get the chance, that doesn't matter. Well, I think you are wise to go. There are already more of us here than there seems to be any use for."
Ingleby almost fancied that there was something slightly unusual in her voice; but her face was impassive, and she rose with a little smile.
"It is getting late, Tom," she said. "You are both going to the demonstration to-morrow?"
Ingleby said they were, and Hetty waited a moment, apparently doing something to her hat, when her brother, who took the basket, passed out of the room. She had a pretty figure, and the pose she fell into with one rounded arm raised and a little hand busy with the hatpin was not unbecoming. She was also on excellent terms with Ingleby, who leaned against the mantel watching her until she shook the hat a trifle impatiently, when he stepped forward.
"If you want the thing put straight, let me try," he said.