Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/233

234 But Rochester had to. And when he laughed, he laughed thoroughly. Jane looked at him with suppressed fury, but suddenly something in her seemed to give way, and the next moment she too was laughing—and laughing, she felt, with far too much heartiness and abandon. Mr. Rochester, she was convinced, would not like her—not really like her—to be laughing at a scene, however comic, in which his mother had been assaulted and battered; and how was Jane to explain to him that it had been just a toss-up whether she should laugh or cry?

"Oh, don't!" she said at last. "You oughtn't to laugh—and I'm sure I oughtn't. I behaved like a bull in a china-shop, and your mother so sweet and gentle"—(Jane?)—"and besides, there's no time to laugh. I want you to do something for me."

"Anything," he said, wiping his eyes.

"You said we were friends," said Jane. "I can't explain now, because your mother's gone down to your uncle's house looking for you, but do you mind telling her, if she asks you, that we have a great aunt living with us? Aunt—Aunt Harriet, I think; an old lady, rather deaf. I don't want you to say so unless you're asked, you know. Oh, how awful everything is! Now I'm asking you to tell lies to your own mother."

"I don't mind," he said truthfully. "And look here, don't you worry. I believe one has a perfect right to tell lies if people ask questions they have no right to ask."

"I'm sure that's wrong," she said, "but I can't argue. You must fly after your mother and head her off, or she'll be coming back to look for you here. But before you go you must tell me where to go to get wigs and things."

He named Hugo's. "But look here," he said. "I don't want to ask any questions, but don't do anything that—that'll be difficult to keep up."

To wring the hands is not usual off the stage, but Jane came near it.

"I can't help myself," she said, standing there with her