“No; to-morrow.”
“Will the workmen be out of the house?”
“Not quite.”
Silence; apparently numb on the one side; certainly self-reproachful on the other.
“What could have possessed me,” Mrs. Darcy asks herself, “to allude to the papering and painting of the nurseries?”
Lavinia remains absolutely dumb. A despair so lifeless and inarticulate frightens the elder woman; and, after a minute or two of anxious cogitation, she tries the effect of a douche of cold water on her companion’s apparently swooned soul.
“I did not think you would have collapsed like this!”
It is partially successful. “I have not collapsed. Since you know, having dragged it out of me, there is no need to pretend before you; but when it matters, I shall not collapse.”
“He is coming to bid you good-bye to-day?”
“Yes.”