Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/97

 May, having gutted the salmon, now espied some scales remaining near the tail. She made some vicious passes with the knife, sending a shower of them over Delight's face and head. Flaming with anger, Delight caught her wrist and stayed the knife.

"You're doing that a-purpose," she said bitterly. "You ugly little devil."

"You'd devil me, would you?" cried May. "You're a nice one, you are! You're a nice one to devil anyone, you are! I tell you the 'ole town's a 'otbed of gossip abaht you. Didn't Fergussen, the fishmonger, jus' tell me this minute. 'E says 'e never seen the like o' you and Kirke stampin' abaht each other like a mare an' a bloomin' stallion! Gemme my knife, or, by Gawd, I'll stick you wiv it!"

She twisted and writhed, bending her body double over their hands welded on the knife. Two primitive women, filled with fury, fighting, they hardly knew why. Delight was larger, stronger, but May's little body was like wire.

"Leave go that knife," she hissed. "Leave go, I tell you, or I'll put my teeth into you!" Her head was down, her shoulders humped. Delight, looking down on her, was afraid of her ferocity, and, deep within her, was a feeling that, after all, May was her dear friend, her only friend in the world, that, somehow, little May was fighting her because there was no one else on whom she could vent the fury of her jealousy of Ada. If you couldn't do things to one person, well, the next best thing was to do them to another.

The back of May's neck was crimson, the fish scales sparkled like pretty spangles in her hair. . . . Suddenly came a sharp sound of some small china-like object striking the ground, a tiny snap, a relaxing of May's