"If you must be a murderer, do it in your own way. I have nothing to say in the matter."
"Do you mean that time never hangs upon your hands—that you are never ennuyee—blasee?"
"Speak English, and I will answer you."
"I want to know," said the persevering tormentor, "if the hum-drum books upstairs, your paint-box and your easel are such good company that you are contented and happy always when you are with them—if you never get cross with yourself and everybody else, and wonder what you were put into the world for, and why the world itself was made, and wish that you could sleep until doomsday. Do you ever feel like this?"
Sarah lifted her eyes with a wondering, incredulous stare at the flippant inquisitor.
"I have felt thus, but I did not suppose that you had."
"Oh, I have a 'blue' turn now and then, but the disease is always more dangerous with girls of your sort—the reading, thinking, strong-minded kind. And the older you grow, the worse you will get. I haven't as much book knowledge as you have, but I know more of the world we live in. Take my advice and settle down to woman's right sphere. Drive away the vapors with beaux and fancy-work now. By-and-by a husband and an establishment will give you something else to think about."
Sarah would have replied, but Lucy broke in with a laugh, light and sweet.
"You two are always at cross-questions! Why can't you be satisfied to let one another alone? Sarah and I never quarrel, Vic.. We agree to disagree. She gives me my way, and I don't meddle with her. If she likes the blues (they say some people enjoy them), where's the harm of her having them? They never come near me. If I get stupid, I go to bed and sleep it off. Don't you think I have done ten rows since breakfast? What a godsend a rainy day is, when one has a fascinating piece of work on hand!"
Too proud to seem to abandon the field, Sarah sat for half an hour longer, stitching steadily away at the complicated tracery upon the ground to be worked; then, as the dimmer daylight caused the others to draw near to the windows, she pushed aside her table and put by her sewing.