"They have asked Marcella and me to lunch," she said. "I am not going, but I shall send her."
He read the note by the firelight, and it produced the most contradictory effects upon him.
"Why don't you go?" he asked her aggressively, rousing himself for a moment to attack her, and so vent some of his ill-humour.
"I have lost the habit of going out," she said quietly, "and am too old to begin again."
"What! you mean to say," he asked her angrily, raising his voice, "that you have never meant to do your duties here—the duties of your position?"
"I did not foresee many, outside this house and land. Why should we change our ways? We have done very well of late. I have no mind to risk what I have got."
He glanced round at her in a quick nervous way, and then looked back again at the fire. The sight of her delicate blanched face had in some respects a more and more poignant power with him as the years went on. His anger sank into moroseness.
"Then why do you let Marcella go? What good will it do her to go about without her parents? People will only despise her for a girl of no spirit—as they ought."
"It depends upon how it is done. I can arrange it, I think," said Mrs. Boyce. "A woman has always convenient limitations to plead in the way of health. She need never give offence if she has decent wits. It will be understood that I do not go out, and then someone—Miss Raeburn or Lady Winterbourne—will take up Marcella and mother her."
She spoke with her usual light gentleness, but he was not appeased.