"
"And would you go and stay with Mrs. Burrage, after all, if she should
say anything to me that seems to make it desirable?"
Verena broke into a laugh. "You know it's not our real life!"
Olive said nothing for a moment; then she replied: "Don't think _I_ can
forget that. If I suggest a deviation, it's only because it sometimes
seems to me that perhaps, after all, almost anything is better than the
form reality _may_ take with us." This was slightly obscure, as well as
very melancholy, and Verena was relieved when her companion remarked, in
a moment, "You must think me strangely inconsequent"; for this gave her
a chance to reply, soothingly:
"Why, you don't suppose I expect you to keep always screwed up! I will
stay a week with Mrs. Burrage, or a fortnight, or a month, or anything
you like," she pursued; "anything it may seem to you best to tell her
after you have seen her."
"Do you leave it all to me? You don't give me much help," Olive said.
"Help to what?"
"Help to help _you_."
"I don't want any help; I am quite strong enough!" Verena cried gaily.
The next moment she inquired, in an appeal half comical, half touching,
"My dear colleague, why do you make me say such conceited things?"
"And if you do stay--just even to-morrow--shall you be--very much of the
time--with Mr. Ransom?"
As Verena for the moment appeared ironically-minded, she might have
found a fresh subject for hilarity in the tremulous, tentative tone in
which Olive made this inquiry.
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