“I never thought of that,” she said. “I am perfectly ready, indeed I would much rather pay back what they have given me up to this. For I believe my work is, or will be from now, worth paying for.”
“Very likely,” said Hertha, but then she went on to lay the situation in two aspects before Winifred—her own clear home duties, so peculiar and unmistakable; and the wrong of taking advantage of the society to the prejudice of some other girl in real need of it.
The first of these Winifred began by disposing of glibly enough. The work of home was better done by Louise than by herself—better, well, not literally better—she knew she had a clearer head for figures, and a more ready grasp of things than her sister. But she was not nearly so patient and sweet tempered as Louise, she decided complacently: “Oh no, not nearly. I should try papa awfully.”
Hertha stared at her.
“And you would make your own shortcomings an excuse for neglecting duties?” she exclaimed. “What sophistry! What a vicious circle you are involving yourself in! Patience and self-control can be acquired. You speak as if your besetting sins belonged to you, like the colour of your eyes or the shape of your nose.”
Winifred did not reply.
“And my second point—that of taking what is not meant for you?” Hertha went on.
“That,” said Winifred, “is, I think, for the society to decide. Of course I am now quite ready to tell anything about my circumstances.”
In her turn Hertha was silent. She agreed with Winifred that the society should decide, and she felt considerably inclined to believe that the society had decided. For Mr Montague’s thick letter, though unopened, was in her pocket.
But the conversation was by no means at an end.