"
"You don't mean to go?" Rachel asked.
The intensity with which this was spoken irritated Mrs. Ambrose.
"I don't mean to go, and I don't mean not to go," she replied. She
became more and more casual and indifferent.
"After all, I daresay we've seen all there is to be seen; and there's
the bother of getting there, and whatever they may say it's bound to be
vilely uncomfortable."
For some time Rachel made no reply; but every sentence Helen spoke
increased her bitterness. At last she broke out--
"Thank God, Helen, I'm not like you! I sometimes think you don't think
or feel or care to do anything but exist! You're like Mr. Hirst. You see
that things are bad, and you pride yourself on saying so. It's what
you call being honest; as a matter of fact it's being lazy, being dull,
being nothing. You don't help; you put an end to things."
Helen smiled as if she rather enjoyed the attack.
"Well?" she enquired.
"It seems to me bad--that's all," Rachel replied.
"Quite likely," said Helen.
At any other time Rachel would probably have been silenced by her Aunt's
candour; but this afternoon she was not in the mood to be silenced by
any one. A quarrel would be welcome.
"You're only half alive," she continued.
"Is that because I didn't accept Mr. Flushing's invitation?" Helen
asked, "or do you always think that?"
At the moment it appeared to Rachel that she had always seen the same
faults in Helen, from the very first night on board the _Euphrosyne_, in
spite of her beauty, in spite of her magnanimity and their love.
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