Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/316

 But Sadie, for all the ludicrous absurdity of those movements so like an amphibian's, was never more serious in her life.

When she had disposed the fragment of crockery to her liking, she again rolled over and regarded it with critical eyes. Then, carefully measuring her distance, she rolled away from it, this time at a slightly different angle. But on this occasion, disregarding any personal discomfort which it might involve, she rolled completely over on the saw-edge of the broken majolica, so that when she lay face upward her two forearms, tightly tied against her back at the waist-line, rested on the jagged edge of the earthenware. Then, with a series of movements even more undignified than her earlier ones, she began to see-saw her tired body back and forth, making sure to press a strand or two of the cotton rope against the serrated edge of the vase-side as she moved.

It took much patience and even more strength of body. But by this time she was working in that icy calm of determination which is the sublimation of indignant rage. She was no longer thinking of herself. She was thinking only of what stood before her. And she could not afford to fail.