The Three Sisters Part 36

"It doesn't matter what I think."

"Not much. If you think that."

Silence. And then Rowcliffe burst out again.

"There are two things that I can't stand--a woman nursing a dog and a woman in love with the moon. They mean the same thing. And it's horrible."

"Why?"

"Because if it's humbug she's a hypocrite, and if it's genuine she's a monster."

"And if I'm in love with the moon--and you said I was----"

"I didn't. You said it yourself."

"Not at all. I said _if_ I was in love with the moon, I'd be in love with _it_ and not with my idea of it. I want reality."

"So do I. We're not likely to get it if we can't see it."

"No. If you're only in love with what you see."

"Oh, you're too clever. Too clever for me."

"Am I too clever for myself?"

"Probably."

He laughed abominably.

"I don't see the joke."

"If you don't see it this minute you'll see it in another ten years."

"Now," she said, "you're too clever for _me_."

They walked on in silence again. The mist gathered and dripped about them.

Abruptly she spoke.

"Has anything happened?"

"No, it hasn't."

"I mean--anything horrid?"

Her voice sounded such genuine distress that he dropped his hostile and contemptuous tone.

"No," he said, "why should it?"

"Because I've noticed that, when people are unusually horrid, it always means that something horrid's happened to them."

"Really?"

"Papa, for instance, is only horrid to us because Mummy--my stepmother, you know--was horrid to him."

"What did Mummy do to him?"

"She ran away from him. It's always that way. People aren't horrid on purpose. At least I'm sure _you_ wouldn't be."

"_Was_ I horrid?"

"Well--for the last half-hour----"

"You see, I find you a little exasperating at times."

"Not always?"

"No. Not by any means always."

"Can I tell when I am? Or when I'm going to be?"

He laughed (not at all abominably). "No. I don't think you can. That's rather what I resent in you."

"I wish I could tell. Then perhaps I might avoid it. You might just give me warning when you think I'm going to be it."

"I did give you warning."

"When?"

"When it began."

"There you are. I don't know when it did begin. What were we talking about?"

"I wasn't talking about anything. You were talking about the moon."

"It was the moon that did it."

"I suppose it was the moon."

"I see. I bored you. How awful."

"I didn't say you bored me. You never have bored me. You couldn't bore me."

"No--I just irritate you and drive you mad."

"You just irritate me and drive me mad."

The words were brutal but the voice caressed her. He took her by the arm and steered her amicably round a hidden boulder.