Page:My mortal enemy - 1926.djvu/80

 and sniffed the air. “Do you get it? That bitter smell of the sea? It’s apt to come in on the night wind. I live on it. Sometimes I can still take a drive along the shore. Go on; you say that Lydia and your mother are at present in disputation about the possession of your late grandfather’s portrait. Why don’t you cut it in two for them, Nellie? I remember it perfectly, and half of it would be enough for anybody!”

While I told her any amusing gossip I could remember about my family, she sat crippled but powerful in her brilliant wrappings. She looked strong and broken, generous and tyrannical, a witty and rather wicked old woman, who hated life for its defeats, and loved it for its absurdities. I recalled her angry laugh, and how she had always greeted shock or sorrow with that dry, exultant chuckle which seemed to say: “Ah-ha, I have one more piece of evidence, one more, against the hideous injustice God permits in this world!”

While we were talking, the silence of the