Page:Arthur Stringer-The Loom of Destiny.djvu/104

The Loom of Destiny timidity, so strong-willed and outspoken was its monarch on the question of foreign intrusion.

So when Russell heard the step of the cook coming up from the laundry, he flushed guiltily and fled upstairs, by way of the back hall, tingling with fear. At the top of the stairs he listened for several moments, then tiptoed up to the nursery, where for an hour he brooded alone with some indefinite sense of shame. The baby curl went out of his lips and his eyes hardened, for it was his first passion of illicit possession. He tried to remember just how chocolate tasted, and brought to mind the last time he had eaten it as frosting on cake. It was about the sweetest thing, he thought, that he had ever tasted. But then they put such a little bit of frosting on cakes, and never, never was he allowed a second piece. The injustice of it all filled him with a weak, indeterminate rage.

When Weston, the maid, came to take him out for his walk he hotly protested that he had a headache, and would not go. He wanted to be alone. This unexpected revolt 92