Page:The Specimen Case.djvu/222

Rh tightly-rolled handkerchief. She looked distinctly mulish, nor, to drive home the comparison, would she speak.

"She won't answer you," interpreted Phœbe. "She has become sullen. She has made friends with a girl whom she met at Hampton Court and she wants to go to the laundry to be with her."

"And the friend's brother?" suggested Philip with intuition. "Is he also to be found at the laundry?"

Marianna shot a rapid glance and licked her lips.

"There is a brother," admitted Phœbe. "Possibly."

"But her art—her future—her career!"

"She does not think that there is anything much in drawing. And in the laundry she will be able to do more as she wants, wear what she likes, and go about the streets with her own friends. You see, she is growing up."

"If she had stayed she would have been making hundreds, if not tens of hundreds, a few years hence."

"She does not understand hundreds and tens of hundreds. They convey nothing to her mind. All she wants is money to buy apples and purple dresses with, from day to day and week to week. And she informs me that she will get better wages there than I am paying her here."

"When does she want to go?"

"To-morrow, she says. Of course she could be kept for a month really, but she knows nothing about giving proper notice."

"Very well," replied Philip dispassionately; "then I should let her go to-morrow."

She went the next day—to the laundry at Acton. She became very sunny and pleasant when she understood that she would be allowed to go, and in return nobody thought it worth while to underline sentiments less ami-