"
"I want more independence," said Lucy lamely; she knew that she
wanted something, and independence is a useful cry; we can always
say that we have not got it. She tried to remember her emotions
in Florence: those had been sincere and passionate, and had
suggested beauty rather than short skirts and latch-keys. But
independence was certainly her cue.
"Very well. Take your independence and be gone. Rush up and down
and round the world, and come back as thin as a lath with the bad
food. Despise the house that your father built and the garden
that he planted, and our dear view--and then share a flat with
another girl."
Lucy screwed up her mouth and said: "Perhaps I spoke hastily."
"Oh, goodness!" her mother flashed. "How you do remind me of
Charlotte Bartlett!"
"Charlotte!" flashed Lucy in her turn, pierced at last by a vivid
pain.
"More every moment."
"I don't know what you mean, mother; Charlotte and I are not the
very least alike."
"Well, I see the likeness. The same eternal worrying, the same
taking back of words.
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