Page:Zangwill-King of schnorrers.djvu/400

386 ; :s< I FL UTTER-D UCK.

" Do you hear what I say?" exclaimed Flutter-Duck, with increasing wrath. " Give me the pink wrap ! When the mother says is said ! " And she looked around the group of spectators, in search of sympathy with her trials and admiration for her maternal dignity.

" I can never keep anything for myself," said Rachel sullenly. " You never take care of anything."

"I took care of you," screamed Flutter-Duck, goaded beyond endurance by the thought that her neighbours were witnessing this filial disrespect. " And a fat lot of good it's done me."

" Yes, much care you take of me. You only think of enjoying yourself. It's young girls who ought to go out, not old women."

" You impudent face ! " And with an irresistible impulse of savagery, a reversion to the days of Medidni, Flutter- Duck swung round her arm, and struck Rachel violently on the cheek with her white-gloved harld.

The sound of the slap rang hollow and awful through the room.

The workers looked up and paused, the neighbours held their breath ; there was a dread silence, broken only by the hissings of the excited goose, and the half involuntary apologetic murmurings of Flutter-Duck's lips : " If I bin a mother, I bin a mother."

For an instant Rachel's face was a white mask, on which five fingers stood out in fire ; the next it was one burning mass of angry blood. She clenched her fist, as if about to strike her mother, then let the fingers relax ; half from a relic of filial awe, half from respect for the finery. There was a peculiar light in her eyes. Without a word she turned slowly on her heel and walked into her little room, emerging, after an instant of general suspense, with the pink wrap in