"I can't explain pains I
haven't got."
"If you haven't got any pains, then you aren't ill."
Beatrice laughed.
"That shows how ignorant you are of the human constitution, my dear
mother," she said. "The worst illnesses are painless--at least, in
your sense of the word."
"I am not so ignorant as not to know one thing--and that is you are
simply shamming!" burst out the elder woman, with a vicious tug at her
straining gloves. "Shamming just to aggravate me, too! You do it to
spite me. You are a bad daughter--"
Beatrice turned round so sharply that Mrs. Cary broke off in the
middle of her abuse with a gasp.
"I do nothing to aggravate or spite you," Beatrice said, with a calm
which her eyes belied. "I have never gone against you in the whole
course of my life. What have I done since we have been here but play
an obedient fiddle to Mr. Travers' will, in order that your position
might not be endangered--"
"_Our_ position," interposed Mrs. Cary hurriedly.
"No, _your_ position. There may have been a time when I cared, too,
but I don't now. I have ceased caring for anything. To suit Mr.
Travers, I have fooled, and continue to fool, a man who has never
harmed me in his life. I move heaven and earth to come between two
people for whom alone in this whole place, I have a glimmer of
respect."
"Respect!" jeered Mrs. Cary.
"Yes, respect--not much, I confess, but still enough to have made me
leave them alone if I had had the chance.
Pages:
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131