“Don’t then; there is no objection to your staying under the circumstances. Why do you look so unhappy about it?” said Lilias. “Is it all your dislike to her brother?”
“No,” said Mary with some hesitation, “I don’t think that would affect me one way or the other, and as her brother, he is some degrees less odious than I could have expected. No, my feeling is, under the circumstances, Lilias, an intense dislike to putting them—him, I should say, in a position of obligation to us. It is like forcing him to be civil to us.”
“And why shouldn’t he be?” said Lilias, “it is much better than forcing him to be uncivil to us, anyway.”
“I don’t know that it is,” said Mary, smiling faintly. “I can’t altogether explain my feeling, but it is most uncomfortable altogether. He hates my staying as much as I do, and yet I can’t do a cruel thing. Why, I stayed up three nights in Bevan’s cottage when Jessie broke her leg, without a second thought?”
“Of course you did,” said Lilias, “and that’s the right way to put it. Forget all about her being Mr Cheviott’s sister, and just think of doing a kind thing. Mary, it’s very queer, but somehow it seems as if my troubles had, in a sense, done you more harm than me. Your sympathy for me has made you morbid.”
“Perhaps so,” replied Mary. “And I dare say you are right. But all the same,” she added, “I am not fond of ‘coals of fire;’ there always seems to me something mean in heaping them on.”
“But suppose you have no choice between that and letting your enemy hunger?” asked Lilias. “But ‘enemy’ and ‘coals of fire’—what absurdly strong expressions—only you will have it poor Mr Cheviott is the cause of it all.”
“Poor Mr Cheviott!” repeated Mary.
“I must be going,” said Lilias. “George is coming to meet me; he was to start just half an hour after me, so I cannot miss him, and I don’t want your friend to offer to see me home, so good-night, dear. You’ll find all you want in that bundle, and a good deal you won’t want, for mother would put in all manner of things she thought might be useful for Miss Cheviott—from cotton-wool to a hop pillow, and no doubt you have got all you want from Romary.”
“No,” said Mary, “that maid has no sense, and forgot nearly everything she should have remembered. I am very glad of your olla podrida, Lily. Good-night, and thank you.”