pg5247 [272]
"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.
Sophia remembered the very words, 'You can't alter her,' which she had used in remonstrating with Cyril. And now she had been guilty of precisely the same unreason as that with which she had reproached Cyril! She was ashamed, both for herself and for Constance. Assuredly it had not been such a scene as women of their age would want to go through often. It was humiliating. She wished that it could have been blotted out as though it had never happened. Neither of them ever forgot it. They had had a lesson. And particularly Sophia had had a lesson. Having learnt, they left the Rutland, amid due ceremonies, and returned to St. Luke's Square.
CHAPTER IV
END OF SOPHIA
I
The kitchen steps were as steep, dark, and difficult as ever. Up those steps Sophia Scales, nine years older than when she had failed to persuade Constance to leave the Square, was carrying a large basket, weighted with all the heaviness of Fossette. Sophia, despite her age, climbed the steps violently, and burst with equal violence into the parlour, where she deposited the basket on the floor near the empty fireplace. She was triumphant and breathless. She looked at Constance, who had been standing near the door in the attitude of a shocked listener.
"There!" said Sophia. "Did you hear how she talked?"
"Yes," said Constance. "What shall you do?"
"Well," said Sophia. "I had a very good mind to order her out of the house at once. But then I thought I would take no notice. Her time will be up in three weeks. It's best to be indifferent. If once they see they can upset you…. However, I wasn't going to leave Fossette down there to her tender mercies a moment longer. She's simply not looked after her at all."
Sophia went on her knees to the basket, and, pulling aside the dog's hair, round about the head, examined the skin. Fossette was a sick dog and behaved like one. Fossette, too, was nine years older, and her senility was offensive. She was to