Page:The Prussian officer, and other stories, Lawrence, 1914.djvu/232

 Lois turned suddenly and saw her brother and her lover approaching her. Both looked soiled, untidy and wan. Will had a black eye, some ten hours old, well coloured. Lois turned very pale as they approached. They were looking gloomily at the factory, and for a moment did not notice the girls.

“I’ll be jiggered if there ain’t our Lois!” exclaimed Jack, the reprobate, swearing under his breath.

“Oh, God!” exclaimed the other in disgust.

“Jack, where have you been?” said Lois sharply, in keen pain, not looking at her lover. Her sharp tone of suffering drove her lover to defend himself with an affectation of comic recklessness.

“In quod,” replied her brother, smiling sicklily.

“Jack!” cried his sister very sharply.

“Fact.”

Will Selby shuffled on his feet and smiled, trying to turn away his face so that she should not see his black eye. She glanced at him. He felt her boundless anger and contempt, and with great courage he looked straight at her, smiling ironically. Unfortunately his smile would not go over his swollen eye, which remained grave and lurid.

“Do I look pretty?” he inquired with a hateful twist of his lip.

“Very!” she replied.

“I thought I did,” he replied. And he turned to look at his father’s ruined works, and he felt miserable and stubborn. The girl standing there so clean and out of it all! Oh, God, he felt sick. He turned to go home.