“I know it is not; but it is enough to make us a little home. Now listen, Oscar, for I have it all planned out. You shall go on at the office if you must, because it’s something to do, and Uncle Tom has been kind in a way, though if he suspects you—however, we won’t talk any more about that. But we won’t go on living with the Cossarts any more, I’m quite determined on that. We shall have enough to have a little home of our own, even if it’s only a lodging; and you will go to the office, and I’ll try and get some music pupils, or little children to teach in the mornings, or something to help. And I’ll keep our home as nice as possible, and we’ll have cosy evenings together, and we’ll have nothing to do with the people who have behaved so badly to us. Oh, I don’t mean that we’ll cut them or anything, but we won’t go on living with them and eating their bread. I couldn’t possibly dream of going back to Cossart Place ever; and they don’t want me at Uncle Tom’s, and besides, how could I go on living in the same house with that Cyril? I can’t think how you can do it, Oscar, I really can’t.” Sheila leant forward with flushed cheeks and shining eyes. Oscar was leaning back in his chair, his face a little in the shadow. Sheila had been struck on first seeing him with the sharpened look of his features, and the tired expression in his eyes; the same thing struck her again more forcibly at this moment, although she spoke no word of it. “Say you think it a nice plan, Oscar, for I’m sure you do!” she cried eagerly. “No, Sheila, I don’t think it would do,” he said slowly. “Oh, Oscar, what do you mean? I’m sure it would. We should be so happy together, you and I. And it’s often so horrid being with people who misunderstand us. I think we’ve had enough of that. Oh, don’t say you won’t think of it!” “I am thinking of it, Sheila, I’m thinking hard, for I hate to thwart you; but I don’t think it would do, and you would find that living in a very small way, and trying to earn something yourself, are two very difficult matters for people brought up as we have been.” “But, Oscar, we should belong to ourselves and each other. We should be free from those horrid things that happen in other people’s houses.” “But we should have other troubles and worries to face, Sheila. And do you know, I think it would not only be very ungrateful to our relations to take ourselves off like that, but I think it would be very bad for us ourselves.” “Bad for us? I don’t understand.” “I think it is always bad for people to rebel too much against the life which—well—which God seems to have arranged for them. Sheila, don’t you think that in the old days you and I had rather too much of our own way?” “I never thought about it—did we?”