“Then I shall stay here,” I declared. “I shall not leave you alone, without friends or a protector of any kind, to sing night after night in that place. I shall not do it. I shall stay here as long as you do.”
She was silent. I wondered what was coming next. I expected her to say, as she had said before, that I was forcing her to give up her one opportunity. I expected reproaches and was doggedly prepared to meet them. But she did not reproach me. She said nothing; instead she seemed to be thinking, to be making up her mind.
“Don't do it, Frances,” I pleaded. “Don't sing there any longer. Give it up. You don't like the work; it isn't fit work for you. Give it up.”
She rose from her chair and standing by the window looked out into the street. Suddenly she turned and looked at me.
“Would it please you if I gave up singing at L'Abbaye?” she asked quietly. “You know it would.”
“And if I did would you and Miss Cahoon go back to England—at once?”
Here was another question, one that I found very hard to answer. I tried to temporize.
“We want you to come with us,” I said, earnestly. “We want you. Hephzy—”
“Oh, don't, don't, don't! Why will you persist? Can't you understand that you hurt me? I am trying to believe I have some self-respect left, even after all that has happened. And you—What CAN you think of me! No, I tell you! NO!”
“But for Hephzy's sake. She is your only relative.”