“Now, what do you say?” Sophia gently entreated.

“There’s some of us like Bursley, black as it is!” said Constance.  And Sophia was surprised to detect tears in her sister’s voice.

“Now, my dear Constance,” she remonstrated.

“It’s no use!” cried Constance, flinging away her work, and letting her tears flow suddenly.  Her face was distorted.  She was behaving just like a child.  “It’s no use!  I’ve got to go back home and look after things.  It’s no use.  Here we are pitching money about in this place.  It’s perfectly sinful.  Drives, carriages, extras!  A shilling a day extra for each dog.  I never heard of such goings-on.  And I’d sooner be at home.  That’s it.  I’d sooner be at home.”  This was the first reference that Constance had made for a long time to the question of expense, and incomparably the most violent.  It angered Sophia.

“We will count it that you are here as my guest,” said Sophia, loftily, “if that is how you look at it.”

“Oh no!” said Constance.  “It isn’t the money I grudge.  Oh no, we won’t.”  And her tears were falling thick.

“Yes, we will,” said Sophia, coldly.  “I’ve only been talking to you for your own good.  I—­”

“Well,” Constance interrupted her despairingly, “I wish you wouldn’t try to domineer over me!”

“Domineer!” exclaimed Sophia, aghast.  “Well, Constance, I do think—­”

She got up and went to her bedroom, where the dogs were imprisoned.  They escaped to the stairs.  She was shaking with emotion.  This was what came of trying to help other people!  Imagine Constance ...!  Truly Constance was most unjust, and quite unlike her usual self!  And Sophia encouraged in her breast the feeling of injustice suffered.  But a voice kept saying to her:  “You’ve made a mess of this.  You’ve not conquered this time.  You’re beaten.  And the situation is unworthy of you, of both of you.  Two women of fifty quarreling like this!  It’s undignified.  You’ve made a mess of things.”  And to strangle the voice, she did her best to encourage the feeling of injustice suffered.

‘Domineer!’

And Constance was absolutely in the wrong.  She had not argued at all.  She had merely stuck to her idea like a mule!  How difficult and painful would be the next meeting with Constance, after this grievous miscarriage!

As she was reflecting thus the door burst open, and Constance stumbled, as it were blindly, into the bedroom.  She was still weeping.

“Sophia!” she sobbed, supplicatingly, and all her fat body was trembling.  “You mustn’t kill me ...  I’m like that—­you can’t alter me.  I’m like that.  I know I’m silly.  But it’s no use!” She made a piteous figure.

Sophia was aware of a lump in her throat.

“It’s all right, Constance; it’s all right.  I quite understand.  Don’t bother any more.”

Constance, catching her breath at intervals, raised her wet, worn face and kissed her.