The colour rose a little in Winifred’s face. Hertha, with instinctive delicacy, glanced away. She knew that direct owning to poverty was painful to some people.
“Ye-es,” said Miss Maryon, at last. “It is—there are—more than one motive. I want to help my sister, too, the one you saw. I am positively certain she has great talent for painting if she had a chance of cultivating it.
“Indeed?” said Hertha, “that simplifies her line of action. What she has to do is to test herself. Then you want to help her to get good teaching, and, I suppose, to make a home for her in London? Yes, she is too young and too beautiful to attempt anything of the kind without some one to take care of her. And—can you both be spared at home?”
“We have another sister at home, and, though my father is in delicate health, my mother is well and active. We have thought about it for a long time—Celia and I.”
“Poor souls! Two fewer to provide for, no doubt, is a consideration,” thought Hertha.
“Does Mrs Balderson know about it? Is she likely to help you in any way?” she asked aloud. “I do not know her personally, but I have heard she is truly kind.”
“She has been very kind in having us here. But she would not sympathise in our plans. She is—old-fashioned, I suppose. She thinks girls should stay quietly at home.”
“Ah, indeed,” said Hertha, her mind rapidly picturing to itself what, in such a case, the “staying quietly at home” must mean: the poor, unbeautiful surroundings, the colourless lives, the pain and almost degradation of the terrible “genteel poverty.”
“But she is very kind,” repeated Winifred, her conscience smiting her; “she asked us out of kindness. She would like us to marry,” with a little smile. “But, of course, I never shall. She likes Celia the best, I think.”
Again Hertha’s imagination jumped to hasty conclusions. “I see it all,” she thought. “She wants to show the pretty one to advantage, to give her a chance, as people say.”