But she had declined that.
She could not have borne to remain in the Pension under the reign of another.
She had left at once and gone to a hotel with her few goods while finally disposing of certain financial questions.
And one evening Jacqueline had come to see her, and had wept.
Her exit from the Pension Frensham struck her now as poignantly pathetic, in its quickness and its absence of ceremonial.
Ten steps, and her career was finished, closed.
Astonishing with what liquid tenderness she turned and looked back on that hard, fighting, exhausting life in Paris!
For, even if she had unconsciously liked it, she had never enjoyed it.
She had always compared France disadvantageously with England, always resented the French temperament in business, always been convinced that 'you never knew where you were' with French tradespeople.
And now they flitted before her endowed with a wondrous charm; so polite in their lying, so eager to spare your feelings and to reassure you, so neat and prim.
And the French shops, so exquisitely arranged!
Even a butcher's shop in Paris was a pleasure to the eye, whereas the butcher's shop in Wedgwood Street, which she remembered of old, and which she had glimpsed from the cab--what a bloody shambles!
She longed for Paris again.
She longed to stretch her lungs in Paris.
These people in Bursley did not suspect what Paris was.
They did not appreciate and they never would appreciate the marvels that she had accomplished in a theatre of marvels.
They probably never realized that the whole of the rest of the world was not more or less like Bursley.
They had no curiosity.
Even Constance was a thousand times more interested in relating trifles of Bursley gossip than in listening to details of life in Paris.
Occasionally she had expressed a mild, vapid surprise at things told to her by Sophia; but she was not really impressed, because her curiosity did not extend beyond Bursley.
She, like the rest, had the formidable, thrice-callous egotism of the provinces.
And if Sophia had informed her that the heads of Parisians grew out of their navels she would have murmured:
"Well, well!
Bless us!
I never heard of such things!
Mrs. Brindley's second boy has got his head quite crooked, poor little fellow!"
Why should Sophia feel sorrowful?
She did not know.
She was free; free to go where she liked and do what she liked, She had no responsibilities, no cares.
The thought of her husband had long ago ceased to rouse in her any feeling of any kind.
She was rich.
Mr. Critchlow had accumulated for her about as much money as she had herself acquired.
Never could she spend her income!
She did not know how to spend it.
She lacked nothing that was procurable.
She had no desires except the direct desire for happiness.
If thirty thousand pounds or so could have bought a son like Cyril, she would have bought one for herself.
She bitterly regretted that she had no child.
In this, she envied Constance.
A child seemed to be the one commodity worth having.
She was too free, too exempt from responsibilities.
In spite of Constance she was alone in the world.
The strangeness of the hazards of life overwhelmed her.
Here she was at fifty, alone.
But the idea of leaving Constance, having once rejoined her, did not please Sophia.
It disquieted her.
She could not see herself living away from Constance.
She was alone--but Constance was there.
She was downstairs first, and she had a little conversation with Amy.
And she stood on the step of the front-door while Fossette made a preliminary inspection of Spot's gutter.