Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/136

124 enough not to allow it to displease her. She went on, with the same quaint, yet awe-inspiring simplicity.

“I am she who holds joy and sorrow in the hollow of my hand; ay, life and death. When I lift it the prayers of the faithful may hope for answer; when I do not lift it, their petitions are offered up in vain, for the Great Joss is sleeping; and, when he sleeps, he attends to no one’s prayers.”

She stopped. I should have liked her to have gone on; or, at least, to have been a trifle more explicit. But, possibly, she was under the impression that she had vouchsafed sufficient information, and, in exchange, would like a little out of me. She put a point blank question.

“Are you Miss Mary Blyth?”

I motioned with my hand towards the bed.

“That’s Pollie. She’s asleep.”

“Pollie? Who is Pollie? I ask, are you Miss Mary Blyth?”

“That is Mary Blyth upon the bed. I’m a friend of hers, so I call her Pollie. She’s known to all her friends as Pollie.”

She considered, knitting her brows. I half expected her to again roundly call me liar; but, instead, she asked a question, the meaning of which I scarcely grasped.

“Is Susie a name by which one is known unto one’s friends?”

“Susie? Isn’t that the pet name for Susan?”

For some reason my answer seemed to afford her a singular amount of pleasure. She broke into a soft ripple of laughter; for sheer music I had never heard anything like it before. The sound was so infectious that it actually nearly made me smile—even then! She put her hands before her face, in the enjoyment of some joke which was altogether beyond my comprehension; then, holding out her arms, extended them on either side of her as wide as she possibly could.