Page:E Nesbit - The Literary Sense.djvu/72

60 "Fool!" he said to himself, and stamped his foot.

Dorothea ran up the stairs two at a time to say the same word to herself in the stillness of her bedroom.

"Fool—fool—fool!" she said. "Why couldn't I have said 'No' quietly? Why did I let him see I was angry? Why should I be angry? It's better to be wanted because you're a good manager than not to be wanted at all. At least, I suppose it is. No—it isn't! it isn't! it isn't! And nothing's any use now It's all gone. If he'd wanted to marry me when I was young and pretty I could have made him love me. And I was pretty—I know I was—I can remember it perfectly well!"

Her quiet years had taken from her no least little touch of girlish sentiment. The longing to be loved was as keen in her as it had been at twenty. She cried herself to sleep, and had a headache the next day. Also her eyes looked smaller than usual and her nose was pink. She went and sat in the black shade of a yew, and trusted that in that deep shadow her eyes and nose would not make Robert feel glad that she