"IF YOU GO ACROSS THE SEA!"
"Such money as Margaret had she has left to you, Christina, and in telling you this, I should like to make a final protest against your remaining in Lady Cicely's household, in a subordinate and dependent position."
"How dear of Aunt Margaret—how very, very dear of her, to give me her money," Christina said; "and with that money I shouldn't be dependent any more, should I?" and she looked into Sir Arthur's grim face, with a smile whose inner meaning that worthy did not feel quite able to fathom. Was it merely the smile of guileless simplicity, or was she, in a mild way, presuming to chaff him?
"In the stricter sense of the word, no, you would not be dependent. But that is a mere shuffling of words. You would still be in a subordinate position here, and the position is a false one."
Christina, standing by the window in Cicely's great London drawing-room, devoutly wished that somebody would come in, or that something would happen, to end this interview with her uncle, who never failed to have one of two disastrous effects upon her: either he made her feel angry—really viciously angry, as she expressed it—or he made her hopelessly inclined to giggle.
"And to-day I want to giggle," she said to herself, "and if I do, he will never forgive me or forget."
Aloud she said, with a gravity she was far from feeling—
"I don't want to be rude and contradict you, Uncle Arthur, but I cannot feel I am in a false position here. Cicely really needs me, for herself, as well as for Baba; this is a very happy home for me, and, because I still take care of Baba just as I did before, I don't feel I am doing anything beneath my dignity, or—subordinate."
"I wish I could make you understand the fitness of things," Sir Arthur answered, with a grieved air, which never failed to amuse his niece. "Your Aunt Ellen and I would gladly offer you a home, but—I fear that, at the bottom of your heart, this Babylon, this Vanity Fair, makes an appeal to you."
"I do like London," was the frank response, "and though it is very good of you to ask me to come to your house, I think I am really wanted here. Cicely would miss me, Baba would miss me, and—I like doing all I can for them. Cicely has been so good to me all through."