She wished with leaping pulse that she could see him again quickly.

Yet it would be awkward too.
* * * * * Presently she got up and went away to take off her things.

As the door closed behind her, Mrs.Boyce held out Miss Raeburn's note, which Marcella had returned to her, to her husband.
"They have asked Marcella and me to lunch," she said.

"I am not going, but I shall send her." He read the note by the firelight, and it produced the most contradictory effects upon him.
"Why don't you go ?" he asked her aggressively, rousing himself for a moment to attack her, and so vent some of his ill-humour.
"I have lost the habit of going out," she said quietly, "and am too old to begin again." "What! you mean to say," he asked her angrily, raising his voice, "that you have never _meant_ to do your duties here--the duties of your position ?" "I did not foresee many, outside this house and land.

Why should we change our ways?
We have done very well of late.