Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/138

126 should have been given to her. She will never do as she is told; it is because she is told that she will never do it. Obedience is not for her, it is for those with whom she lives to obey.” She glanced round. “It is for you.”

There was a sting in the little air of malice with which it was said, although the thing was true. It nettled me to think how soon she had found me out. She returned to Pollie without deigning to notice how her words had been received.

“Let her sleep on. So sound a sleep should know no sudden waking.” Again there was malice in her tone. She passed her hand two or three times in front of Pollie’s face. “Now she’ll have no evil dreams. It is funny it should have been given to her; very funny. It should have been given to you; you are different. But it is like that things happen; the world is crooked.”

She had returned towards me.

“Have you a lover?”

Her trick of asking the most delicate questions in the abruptest and baldest fashion I found more than a little disconcerting. Although I tried to keep it back, again the blood flamed to my cheeks, all the more because I half expected to have her repeat her enquiry as to how I got it there. For some ridiculous reason I thought of Mr. Frank Paine. It was too absurd. Of course I had only seen him once, and then I had scarcely looked at him, although I could not help noticing that, though he had not bad eyes, in other respects he was positively ugly, and most stilted in his manners. I might never see the man again, probably never should. I was sure I did not want to. And, anyhow, he was absolutely nothing to me, nor, under any possible circumstances, ever could be. It made me wild to think that I should think of him, especially when I was asked such a question as that.

“No,” I stammered.