"My dear Mother, you know you weren't."
"I _was_. You turned me out yourself, Eliot, and had Anne in."
"Only because you couldn't stand it and she could."
"I daresay. She hadn't the same feelings."
"She had her own feelings, anyhow, only she controlled them. She stood
it because she never thought of her feelings. She only thought of what
she could do to help. She was magnificent."
"Of course you think so, because you're in love with her. She must take
you, too. As if Jerrold wasn't enough."
"She hasn't taken me. She probably won't if I ask her. You shouldn't say
those things, Mother. You don't know what you're talking about."
"I know I'm the most unhappy woman in the world. How am I going to live?
I can't stand it if Jerry goes."
"He's got to go, Mother."
"He hasn't. Jerrold's place is here. He's got a duty and a
responsibility. Your dear father didn't leave him the estate for him to
let it go to wrack and ruin. It's most cruel and wrong of him."
"He can't do anything else. Don't you see why he wants to go? He can't
stand the place without Father."
"I've got to stand it. So he may."
"Well, he won't, that's all. He simply funks it."
"He always was an arrant coward where trouble was concerned. He doesn't
think of other people and how bad it is for them. He leaves me when I
want him most."
"It's hard on you, Mother; but you can't stop him. And I don't think you
ought to try."
"Oh, everybody tells me what _I_ ought to do. My children can do as they
like. So can Anne. She and Jerrold can go off to India and amuse
themselves as if nothing had happened and it's all right."
But Anne didn't go off to India.
When she spoke to Jerrold about going with him his hard, unhappy face
showed her that he didn't want her.
"You'd rather I didn't go," she said gently.
"It isn't that, Anne. It isn't that I don't want you. It's--it's simply
that I want to get away from here, to get away from everything that
reminds me--I shall go off my head if I've got to remember every minute,
every time I see somebody who--I want to make a clean break and grow a
new memory."
"I understand. You needn't tell me."
"Mother doesn't. I wish you'd make her see it."
"I'll try. But it's all right, Jerrold. I won't go."
"Of course you'll go. Only you won't think me a brute if I don't take
you out with me?"
"I'm not going out with you. In fact, I don't think I'm going at all. I
only wanted to because of going out together and because of the chance
of seeing you when you got leave. I only thought of the heavenly times
we might have had."