Page:The Climber (Benson).djvu/49

Rh myself. And she doesn't mean anything. Cheer up! It was my fault, too. Stupid old goose! Not you—me!"

Aunt Catherine's teeth were troublesome, and she dipped her toast in her tea.

"Poor Elizabeth!" she added. "You never can tell. Besides, egg comes out. I've spilled egg often, and not a trace of it. What happens to napkins, eh?"

And all the time the poor soul was yearning to say tender, womanly things. But she did not know how. That knowledge was one that had not come to her with years, but the longing for it had not lessened with the increase of them.

But Lucia this morning perceived something new about Aunt Cathie. She saw, and that for the first time, that Aunt Cathie wanted to say things, whereas hitherto she had only known that she did not do so. That dab on her arm which had occasioned the catastrophe with the eggs she suddenly perceived had been an effort, however unsuccessful, to say something, or if not to say, to express a feeling. She cracked the remaining egg, then stopped.

"Aunt Cathie, do eat this," she said. "I don't want it a bit. Or I could ring the bell and get another."

"Better not," said Aunt Cathie. "Elizabeth would ring to find out what you had rung for. Eat it up. You've been for a walk, I suppose, else where did you get that unfortunate hawthorn? I haven't."

"Yes. I am rather hungry," said Lucia.

"Well, eat, then. Growing girl."

Really, Aunt Catherine was so brusque that it was almost impossible to conduct conversation. But Lucia felt both expansive this morning and interested.

"Tell me, Aunt Cathie," she said, "what did you want to say when you jogged my arm? You can say it aloud now, you see, as Aunt Elizabeth has gone. At least, I suppose that it was because she was here that you didn't say it, but did it instead."

That was an unfortunate phrase; it stung, though Lucia did not mean it to, instead of caressing, and Aunt Cathie's shy, timorous tentacles withdrew instead of advancing.

"Don't know what we are talking about," she said. "Pass me the paper, Lucia. Nothing ever happens, though, does it?"

But though Aunt Cathie was easily scared off the slightest advance towards confidence, for the very reason that she so nervously yearned to show herself to Lucia, the girl found not the