Her whole body
looked half-sleepily apprehensive. The parrot watched her with supreme
attention. Suddenly Hermione felt that she could no longer bear this
struggle, that she could no longer continue in darkness, that she must
have full light. The contemplation of this stolid ignorance--that yet
knew how much?--confronting her like a featureless wall almost
maddened her.
"Who are you?" she said. "What have you had to do with my lie?"
Maddalena looked at her and looked away, bending her head sideways
till her plump neck was like a thing deformed.
"What have you had to do with my life? What have you to do with it
now? I want to know!" She stood up. "I must know. You must tell me! Do
you hear?" She bent down. She was standing almost over Maddalena. "You
must tell me!"
There was again a silence through which presently the tram-bell
sounded. Maddalena's face had become heavily expressionless, almost
like a face of stone. And Hermione, looking down at this face, felt a
moment of impotent despair that was succeeded by a fierce, energetic
impulse.
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