tain hour and move the trunks down carefully. Sophy held
many reins of influence.

When Madame Beattie came back from driving, Andrea was with her. She had
called at the shop and taken him away from his fruity barricades, and
they had jogged about the streets, Madame Beattie talking and Andrea
listening with a profound concentration, his smile in abeyance, his
black eyes fiery. When they stopped at the house Esther, watching from
the window, contemptuously noted how familiar they were. Madame Beattie,
she thought, was as intimate with a foreign fruit-seller as with one of
her own class. Madame Beattie seemed impressing upon him some command or
at least instructions. Andrea listened, obsequiously attentive, and when
it was over he took his hat off, in a grand manner, and bending, kissed
her hand. He ran up the steps and rang for her, and after she had gone
in, Esther saw him, dramatic despondency in every drooping muscle, walk
sorrowfully away.

Madame Beattie, as if she meant to accomplish all her farewells betimes,
had the hardihood, this being the hour when Rhoda Knox took an airing,
to walk upstairs to her step-sister's room and seat herself by the
bedside before grandmother had time to turn to the wall. There she sat,
pulling off her gloves and talking casually as if they had been in the
habit of daily converse, while grandmother lay and pierced her with
unyielding eyes. There was not emotion in the glance, no aversion or
remonstrance. It was the glance she had for Esther, for Rhoda Knox.
"Here I am," it said, "flat, but not at your mercy. You can't make me do
anything I don't want to do. I am in the last citadel of apparent
helplessness. You can't any of you drag me out of my bed. You can't even
make me speak." And she would not speak. Esther, creeping out on the
landing to listen, was confident grandmother never said a word. What
spirit it was, what indomitable pluck, thought Esther, to lie there at
the mercy of Madame Beattie, and deny herself even the satisfaction of a
reply. All that Madame Beattie said Esther could not hear, but evidently
she was assuring her sister that she was an arch fool to lie there and
leave Esther in supreme possession of the house.

"Get up," Madame Beattie said, at one point. "There's nothing the matter
with you. One day of liberty'd be better than lying here and dying by
inches and having that Knox woman stare at you. With your constitution,
Susan, you've got ten good years before