"What I want to
know is whether you are home to stay?"
Eleanor glanced at the door, listened, then she said:
"I don't know yet. You see, Papa Claude is to be in New York this winter,
finishing his play. He says if I will come on he will put me in the
Kendall School of Expression and see that I get the right start. It's the
chance of a life-time, and I'm simply wild to go."
"And Queen Vic won't hear of it?"
"Not for a second. She knows perfectly well that I can go on the stage
the day I am twenty-one, yet through sheer obstinacy she refuses to
advance me a penny to do as I like with before the 20th of next July."
"She don't do it for meanness," Quin ventured. "She'd give you all she
had if it came to a showdown. But none of 'em realize you are grown up;
they are afraid to turn you loose."
"Well, I've stood it as long as I intend to. I made up my mind that I
would stick it out until after Aunt Enid's wedding. It nearly breaks my
heart to do anything to hurt her and Aunt Isobel; but even they are
beginning to rebel against grandmother's tyranny."
"What do you mean to do?" asked Quin, with a sudden sinking of the heart.
"I am not sure yet; I haven't quite made up my mind.
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