"No."
"Do you—ever have thoughts like that?"
"Nora, I am not feeling in the least like a trapped rabbit, if that's what you mean."
Nora laughed outright. Her youth and buoyant spirits won the upper hand for the moment, but for no longer. The actual subject of their conversation interposed itself between her humour and herself.
"Why did father try and make money in Mexico?" she demanded suddenly and sharply. "We were rich enough before, and now we are so poor that we have to give up everything that makes life worth living, in order to live."
"My dear child, do you really think that?"
"No, I don't think that. If I thought, I daresay I should see that, as the world goes, I am a very lucky girl. But I feel—awful! And the feelings always count most with me."
Mrs. Ingestre nodded to herself.
"They count most with all normal people," she said; "and those who govern their lives by their heads are not, as a rule, either the happiest or the cleverest. Still, Nora, is it such a sacrifice?"
"Yes."