"Because you're my friend, Elise." "You needn't remind me. I'm not likely to forget that any good thing that's come to me here has come through you." "I don't want anything but good to come to you through me" He leaned forward. "You're not very happy in Wyck, are you?" "Happy? Oh, yes. But it's not what you'd call wildly exciting. And Toby's worrying me. He says he can't stand it, and he wants to emigrate." "Well, why not?" Mr. Waddington's heart gave a great thump of hope. He saw it all clearly. Toby was the great obstruction. Elise might have held out for ever as long as Toby lived with her. But if Toby went--She saw it too; that was why she consented to his going. "It isn't much of a job for him, Bostock's Bank." "N-no," she assented, "n-no. I've told him he can go if he can get anything." He played, stroking the long tails of her fur. It lay between them like a soft, supine animal. "Would you like to live in Cheltenham, Elise?" "Cheltenham?" "If I took a little house for you?" (He had calculated that he might just as well lose his rent in Cheltenham as in Wyck. Better. Besides, he needn't lose it. He could let the White House. It would partly pay for Cheltenham.) "One of those little houses in Montpelier Place?" "It's too sweet of you to think of it." She began playing too, stroking the fur animal; their hands played together over the sleek softness, consciously, shyly, without touching. "But--why Cheltenham?" "Cheltenham isn't Wyck." "No. But it's just as dull and stuffy. Stuffier." "Beautiful little town, Elise." "What's the good of that when it's crammed full of school children and school teachers, and decayed army people and old maids? I don't _know_ anybody in Cheltenham." "Can't you see that that would be the advantage?" "No. I can't see it. There's only one place I _want_ to live in." "And that is--?" "London. And I can't." "Why not?" After all, London was not such a bad idea. He had thought of it before now himself. "Well--I don't know whether I told you that I'm not on very good terms with my husband's people. They haven't been at all nice to me since poor Frank's death." "Poor Elise--" "They live in London and they want to keep me out of it. My father-in-law gives me a small allowance on condition I don't live there. They hate me," she said, smiling, "as much as all that." "Is it a large allowance?" "No. It's a very small one. But they know I can't get on without it." "You ought not to be dependent on such people.... Perhaps in a flat--or one of those little houses in St. John's Wood--" "It would be too heavenly. But what's the good of talking about it?" "You must know what I want to do for you, Elise. I want to make you happy, to put you safe above all these wretched worries, to take care of you, dear. You _will_ let me, won't you?"