“Abroad?” murmured Constance, aghast, recoiling from the proposition as from a grave danger.

“Yes,” said Sophia, brightly and eagerly.  She was determined to take Constance abroad.  “There are lots of places we could go to, and live very comfortably among nice English people.”  She thought of the resorts she had visited with Gerald in the sixties.  They seemed to her like cities of a dream.  They came back to her as a dream recurs.

“I don’t think going abroad would suit me,” said Constance.

“But why not?  You don’t know.  You’ve never tried, my dear.”  She smiled encouragingly.  But Constance did not smile.  Constance was inclined to be grim.

“I don’t think it would,” said she, obstinately.  “I’m one of your stay-at-homes.  I’m not like you.  We can’t all be alike,” she added, with her ‘tart’ accent.

Sophia suppressed a feeling of irritation.  She knew that she had a stronger individuality than Constance’s.

“Well, then,” she said, with undiminished persuasiveness, “in England or Scotland.  There are several places I should like to visit—­Torquay, Tunbridge Wells.  I’ve always under-stood that Tunbridge Wells is a very nice town indeed, with very superior people, and a beautiful climate.”

“I think I shall have to be getting back to St. Luke’s Square,” said Constance, ignoring all that Sophia had said.  “There’s so much to be done.”

Then Sophia looked at Constance with a more serious and resolute air; but still kindly, as though looking thus at Constance for Constance’s own good.

“You are making a mistake, Constance,” she said, “if you will allow me to say so.”

“A mistake!” exclaimed Constance, startled.

“A very great mistake,” Sophia insisted, observing that she was creating an effect.

“I don’t see how I can be making a mistake,” Constance said, gaining confidence in herself, as she thought the matter over.

“No,” said Sophia, “I’m sure you don’t see it.  But you are.  You know, you are just a little apt to let yourself be a slave to that house of yours.  Instead of the house existing for you, you exist for the house.”

“Oh!  Sophia!” Constance muttered awkwardly.  “What ideas you do have, to be sure!” In her nervousness she rose and picked up some embroidery, adjusting her spectacles and coughing.  When she sat down she said:  “No one could take things easier than I do as regards housekeeping.  I can assure you I let dozens of little matters go, rather than bother myself.”

“Then why do you bother now?” Sophia posed her.

“I can’t leave the place like that.”  Constance was hurt.

“There’s one thing I can’t understand,” said Sophia, raising her head and gazing at Constance again, “and that is, why you live in St. Luke’s Square at all.”

“I must live somewhere.  And I’m sure it’s very pleasant.”

“In all that smoke!  And with that dirt!  And the house is very old.”