Then they changed the subject of their conversation, and discussed Mrs Winterfield, as they had often done before.  Captain Aylmer had said that he should return to London on the Saturday, the present day being Tuesday, and Clara accused him of escaping always from the real hard work of his position.  ’I observe that you never stay a Sunday at Perivale,’ she said.

’Well not often.  Why should I?  Sunday is just the day that people like to be at home.’

’I should have thought it would not have made much difference to a bachelor in that way.’

’But Sunday is a day that one specially likes to pass after one’s own fashion.’

’Exactly and therefore you don’t stay with my aunt.  I understand it all completely.’

‘Now you mean to be ill-natured!’

’I mean to say that I don’t like Sundays at Perivale at all, and that I should do just as you do if I had the power.  But women women, that is, of my age are such slaves!  We are forced to give an obedience for which we can see no cause, and for which we can understand no necessity.  I couldn’t tell my aunt that I meant to go away on Saturday.’

‘You have no business which makes imperative calls upon your time.’

’That means that I can’t plead pretended excuses.  But the true reason is that we are dependent.’

‘There is something in that, I suppose.’

’Not that I am dependent on her.  But my position generally is dependent, and I cannot assist myself.’

Captain Aylmer found it difficult to make any answer to this, feeling the subject to be one which could hardly be discussed between him and Miss Amedroz.  He not unnaturally looked to be the heir of his aunt’s property, and any provision made out of that property for Clara would so far lessen that which would come to him.  For anything that he knew, Mrs Winterfield might leave everything she possessed to her niece.  The old lady had not been open and candid to him whom she meant to favour in her will, as she had been to her to whom no such favour was to be shown.  But Captain Aylmer did know, with tolerable accuracy, what was the state of affairs at Belton, and was aware that Miss Amedroz had no prospect of maintenance on which to depend, unless she could depend on her aunt.  She was now pleading that she was not dependent on that lady, and Captain Aylmer felt that she was wrong.  He was a man of the world, and was by no means inclined to abandon any right that was his own; but it seemed to him that he was almost bound to say some word to show that in his opinion Clara should hold herself bound to comply with her aunt’s requirements.

‘Dependence is a disagreeable word,’ he said; and one never quite knows what it means.’

’If you were a woman you’d know.  It means that I must stay at Perivale on Sundays, while you can go up to London or down to Yorkshire.  That’s what it means.’

’What you do mean, I think, is this that you owe a duty to your aunt, the performance of which is not altogether agreeable.  Nevertheless it would be foolish in you to omit it.’