She almost shed tears at the recollection. In short, I had a most unpleasant drive home. At last it was over. I got out of the brougham, with its red body and chocolate wheels, and staggered rather than walked into the house. I did not dare to see mother until all traces of emotion had left my face, but I made straight for Jane's sanctum. "Jane," I said the moment I found myself there, "the Fannings must go away; they must, Jane, they must." "Why so?" asked Jane. "I will tell you what has just happened. Mother must never know, but I must tell some one. Mrs. Fanning took me into the country in their new brougham. We went to Highgate; they have a house there. Mr. Fanning was there to meet us. He called me a little thing, and he took me over the house and over the grounds, and told me, on pain of his direst displeasure, that I was never to give him salad without onions, and then he asked me to _marry him_. O Jane! what is to be done?" "But didn't you always know that he was going to ask you?" inquired Jane in a low voice. "Ask me to marry him! How could I suppose anything so preposterous?" I exclaimed. "Well, dear, I know it goes very sore with you, and I hope, with all my heart and soul, that it may not be necessary." "Necessary!" I said, "what do you mean? O Jane! don't talk in that way, you'll drive me mad. I cannot stay in the house with the Fannings any more." "Let me think for a moment," answered Jane. She looked very careworn and distressed, her face had grown thin and haggard. She looked years older than before we had started the boarding-house. I was quite sorry to see the change in her face. "Our life does not suit you," I said. "Oh, it suits me well enough," she replied, "and I never leave a sinking ship." "But why should this ship be sinking? I thought we were doing so well, the house is almost always full." "It is just this," said Jane: "we charged too little when we started. If the house was choke-full, all the attics and the three different floors let, we could not make the thing pay, that's the awful fact, and you ought to know it, Westenra. We should have begun by charging more." "Then why didn't we?" I said. "I left all those matters to you, Jane. I was very ignorant, and you came and----" "I am not blaming you, my dear Westenra," said Jane; "only it is very, very hard to go on toiling, toiling all day and almost all night, and to feel at the same time that the thing cannot pay, that it can never pay." "But why didn't we begin by charging more, and why can't we charge more now?" "Because people who live in Bloomsbury never pay more," answered Miss Mullins, "that is it, dear. If we meant this thing to succeed we should have started our boarding-house in Mayfair, and then perhaps we might have had a chance of managing. Perhaps with a connection like yours we could have made it pay." "Never," I said, "none of our friends would come to us, they would have been scandalised. It would never have done, Jane."