‘Gott sei dank!’ he remarked. ‘All the dismissals are over.’
He had been discharging his sister’s maid and his father’s valet. For the future Avice was to learn to mend and perhaps make her own clothes, dress her own hair, and otherwise become a useful and practical member of society.
‘Then they are gone, Jerome?’
‘Yes, they are gone.’
‘Toinette came in floods of tears to say adieu. “Ah, mademoiselle!” she exclaimed, “when I reflect upon your hair, and your desolation, without me, I am près à mourir.”’
‘She will soon console herself. She was flirting atrociously with the porter when I went downstairs.’
‘And, Jerome, it has suddenly occurred to me to ask you, at what hour do we start in the morning, and by what route do we travel to England?’
There was a pause, as she looked at him, and saw that her brother’s eyes were fixed upon a book upon the table, and that there was an expression in his face which she did not quite understand. At last he raised his eyes, and said, with, as she thought, some little constraint:
‘We must take the “cheapest and best” route from the Continent, I suppose: Cologne, Rotterdam, and Harwich. I am sorry for you, my child, but——’
‘Oh, sorry, nonsense! I am not made of white sugar, Jerome. Then, at what time must we leave? Shall I have to get up very early?’