“But, my dear girl, where do you lunch and dine?”

“Downstairs, in the dining-room.”

“With all the other boarders?”

Lucia smiled.  “Yes, all of them.  You see we can’t very well turn any of them out.”

“Really, Lucia, before you do things like this you might stop to consider how your friends must feel about it.”

“Why should they feel anything?  It’s all right, Edith, really it is.”

“Right for you to take your meals with these dreadful people?  You can’t say they’re not dreadful, Lucia; for they are.”

“They’re not half so dreadful as you might suppose.  In fact you’ve no idea how nice they can be, some of them.  Indeed I don’t know one of them that isn’t kind and considerate and polite in some way.  Yes, polite.  They’re all inconceivably polite.  And do you know, they all want me to stay on; and I’ve half a mind to stay.”

“Oh, no, my dear, you’re not going to stay.  I’ve come to carry you off the very minute we’ve finished tea.  Sophia should have known better than to bring you here.”

“Poor little Sophie.  If she can stand it, I might.”

“That doesn’t follow at all.  And if you can stand it, your relations can’t.  So make up your mind that you’re going back with me.”

“It’s extremely kind of you; but I should hurt Sophie’s feelings terribly if I went.  Why should I go?”

“Because it isn’t a fit place for you to be in.  To begin with, I don’t suppose they feed you properly.”

“You can’t say I look the worse for it.”

No, certainly she couldn’t; for Lucia looked better than she had done for many months.  In the fine air of Hampstead she had been white and languid and depressed; here in Bloomsbury she had a faint colour, and in spite of her fatigue, looked almost vigorous.  What was more, her face bore out her own account of herself.  She had said she was perfectly happy, and she looked it.

A horrible idea occurred to Edith.  But she did not mean to speak of Rickman till she had got Lucia safe at Hampstead.

“Besides,” said Lucia simply, “I’m staying for the best of all possible reasons; because I want to.”

“Well, if it’s pleasant for you, you forget that it’s anything but pleasant for Horace and me.  Horace—­if you care what he thinks—­would be exceedingly annoyed if he knew about it.”

“Isn’t he just a little unreasonable?”

“He is not.  Is it nice for him to know that you prefer living with these people to staying in his house?”

“What would he say if he knew that one of these people lent us this room?”

The words and the smile that accompanied them challenged Edith to speak; and speak she must.  But she could not bring herself to utter the abominable name.  “And was that on Sophie’s account or yours?”

“On both our accounts; and it was beautifully done.”

“Oh, if it was done beautifully there’s no doubt on whose account it was done.  I should have thought you were the last person, Lucia, to put yourself under such an obligation.”