“Ursula is my own sister Mary’s child. My own sainted sister Mary’s. And I shouldn’t even give a wedding-party to my own sister Mary’s only child? Sarah, it is all your increasing indolence. You are prematurely making an old woman of yourself. Look at me. I am two years your junior, but it might be twenty. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” As he said this he arranged the rose in his button-hole, with a great crackle of his blue-spotted white waistcoat. An oily satisfaction played over the yellow smoothness of his cheeks.
The truth of it was, of course, that the whole man burned with eagerness to leap, at one rush, into the glories of the great world. The opportunity was unique; it offered more than the boldest could have hoped for; we may well forgive his anxiety.
Mevrouw Mopius lay in utter collapse, a crumpled rag, against one corner of her great chintz chair.
“I want Harriet!” she said, faintly. Her husband gave a great snort of contempt as he stalked from the room.
A few minutes later Harriet entered, a novel, as usual, in her dangling hand.
“Harriet, I must have my drops,” exclaimed the invalid, sharply. “The doctor said I was to have them every two hours. And in freshly drawn water each time. I told him it couldn’t be done. Doctor, I said, I’ve nobody to fetch me the water.”
Harriet busied herself about the side-table, mechanically, and in silence.
“‘And your niece?’ said the doctor,” Mevrouw Mopius continued. “So I had to tell him you were no good.”
“Oh, he knows that,” replied Harriet. “I’m no nurse. I can’t look after sick people.”