'
'I should like Henrietta to feel she is needed.'
'I don't think Caroline would be pleased. I'll see what she says.'
Caroline was distressingly indifferent but, as Henrietta went to her
room on her return and sent a message that she had a headache and did
not want any food, she was left undisturbed. Sophia became still more
agitated. What was the matter with the child? It would be terrible if
she were ill, too. Would Rose go and take her temperature? No, Rose
was sure Henrietta would not care for that. She had better be left to
sleep. If only she could be put to sleep for a few days!
Now that she was in the house and locked into her room, Rose was
alarmed. She was afraid she had done wrong in making that confession;
she had played what seemed to be her strongest card but she had played
it in the wrong way, at the wrong moment. She had surely roused the
girl's antagonism and rivalry, and there came to Rose's memory many
little scenes in which Reginald Mallett, crossed in his desires, or
irritated by reproaches, had suddenly stopped his storming, set his
stubborn mouth and left the house, only to return when need drove him
home.
But if Henrietta went, and Rose had no doubt of her intention, she
would not come back. She had the unbending pride of her mother's
class, and Rose's fear was changed into a sense of approaching
desolation. The house would be unbearable without Henrietta. Rose
stood on the landing listening to the small sounds from Caroline's
room and the unbroken silence from Henrietta's.
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