“There is nothing that would please me better. I shall write at once and ask her to receive us both, Fan.”
“If you will, Constance; but I must also write and ask her for myself. I cannot go to live on them, knowing that they are poor, and I must ask her to let me pay her a weekly sum.”
Constance reflected a little before answering.
“Do you mind telling me, Fan, what you are going to offer to pay? You must know that I can only go as my mother's guest, that if you accompany me you must not pay more than for one.”
“Yes, I know that. I think that if I ask her to take me for about two guineas a week it will be very moderate. It costs me so much more now in London. And the money I am spending besides in cabs and finery—I am afraid, Constance, that I am degenerating because I have this money, and that I am forgetting how many poor people are in actual want.”
The result of this conversation was that the two letters were written and sent off the following day.
In the afternoon Fan went to Dawson Place, and Mary received her gladly, but had no sooner heard of the projected visit to Wiltshire than a change came.
“You knew very well,” she said, “that I wanted you to go with me to the seaside, or somewhere; and now that Mrs. Chance is going home you might have given a little of your time to me. But of course I was foolish to imagine that you would leave your friend for my society.”
“I can't very well leave her now, Mary—I scarcely think it would be right.”
“Of course it wouldn't, since you prefer to be with her,” interrupted the other. “I am never afraid to say that I do a thing because it pleases me, but you must call it duty, or by some other fine name.”