Jenny would scarcely have tolerated this family for a week, if she had been brought at all closely or frequently in contact with them; but so much of the day was spent with Maurice and all the evening at the theater that Stacpole Terrace implied little beyond breakfast in bed and bed itself. Sometimes, indeed, when she went home to tea at Hagworth Street and saw the brightness of the glass and shimmer of clean crockery, she was on the verge of sinking her pride in a practical reconciliation. Nine weeks passed, however, making it more difficult every day to admit herself in the wrong; although, during the absence of Maurice, it became a great temptation. Therefore, when this letter arrived from Spain, inviting her to widen the breach with her family, she was half inclined to play with the idea of absolute severance. Flight, swift and sudden, appealed to her until the difficulty of making arrangements began to obscure other considerations. The thought of packing, of catching trains and steamers, of not knowing exactly what frocks to buy, oppressed her; then a fear took hold of her fancy lest, something happening to Maurice, she might find herself alone in a foreign city; and at the end of it all there was her childhood in a vista of time, her childhood with the presence of her mother brooding over it, her mother dearly loved whatever old-fashioned notions she preserved of obedience and strictness of behavior. It would be mean to outrage, as she knew she would, her mother's pride, and to hand her over to the criticisms of a mob of relatives. It would be mean to desert May, who even now might be crying on a solitary pillow. But when she went downstairs dressed and saw the Dale family in morning deshabille, uncorseted, flabby and heavy-eyed, crouching over the parlor fire, and when she thought of Maurice and the empty studio, Jenny's resolution was shaken and she was inclined to renounce every duty, face every difficulty and leave her world behind. "You do look a sulky thing," said Irene. "Coming to sit round the fire?" "No, thanks," said Jenny. "I haven't got the time." "Your young chap's away, isn't he?" asked Winnie. "What's it got to do with you where he is?" Jenny was in a turmoil of nervous indecision, and felt that whatever else she did, she must be quit of Stacpole Terrace for that day at least. She debated the notion of going home, of telling her mother everything; but the imagination of such an exposure of her most intimate thoughts dried her up. It would be like taking off her clothes in front of a crowd of people. Then she thought of going home without reference to the past; but she was prevented by the expectation of her mother's readiness to believe the worst, and the inevitably stricter supervision to which her submission would render her liable. In the end, she compromised with her inclination by deciding to visit Edie and find out what sort of sturdy rogue her nephew was by now.