Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/151

Rh I’ll never forgive you as long as I live for letting me sleep on.”

“Don’t! I wish you wouldn’t pinch. If you’d been in my place, I don’t believe you’d have done anything different—it’s all very well for you to talk. Why didn’t you wake up on your own accord? Anyone else in your place would have done—I should. The truth is, Pollie, you were sleeping like a grampus.”

“Thank you, my pet. I don’t quite know how a grampus sleeps, and I don’t believe you do either; but I’m obliged for the compliment all the same. I suppose it’s meant for a compliment. Of course the thing’s as plain as a pikestaff. Your daughter of the gads sneaked out of one of Bluebeard’s chambers, where, no doubt, she is at this identical moment. Shouldn’t I like to get at her! I will before I’m done. It seems as if she—or somebody—is discontented with the way I’ve behaved since I came into my fortune, though it’s early days to be dissatisfied. And the idea apparently is to get hold of the keys, and then to get rid of me; on the supposition that when I’m once outside I shan’t be able, without the keys, to get in again. But I’m not quite so simple as I look. When she went I expect you fell asleep, though why you didn’t wake me up, and help chivy her downstairs, is more than I can understand. I’d have daughter-of-the-gods her! Then she sneaked back, searched for the keys; fortunately, the intricacies of a Christian woman’s costume were too many for her. So she jumped to the Conclusion that they were concealed in some mysterious hiding-place, quite beyond her finding out, daughter of the gods though she is. She pinned the piece of paper to my bodice, and she locked the door, supposing that we’d the spirits of mice, and that we’d give her what she’s no more right to than the man in the moon, just to unlock it again. But you’re mistaken, you daughter of the gods! Emily, I can’t see your face, and you can’t see mine. If