It was the end of her endurance; she could stand no more of it. "Oh, Maurice!" she broke out; "oh, Maurice, for goodness' sake!"
Mr. Letham turned to her in a puzzled way. He held a hair brush in either hand at the level of his ears and stared at her from between them: "Why, Nellie—" he began; "what—what's up, old girl?"
She struck her hands sharply together. "Oh, you go on, you go on, you go on!" she cried. "You make me—don't you understand? Can't you understand? I thought that when I brought you this news you'd be as excited as I was. Instead—instead—" She broke off and changed her tone. "Oh, do go on brushing your hair. For goodness' sake don't stand staring at me like that!"
He obeyed in his slowish way. "Well, upon my soul, I don't quite understand, old girl," he said perplexedly.
"That's what I'm telling you," she cried sharply and suddenly. "You don't. You go on, you go on!"
He seemed to be puzzling over that. His silence made her break out with the hard words of her meaning. "Do you really not understand?" she broke out. "Do you go on like that just to irritate me? I believe you do." She gave her vexed laugh again. "I don't know what to believe. It's ridiculous—ridiculous you should be so different from everybody else. It means to me, this news, just this: that it makes you Lord Burdon. Can't you realise? Can't you share my feelings?"
"Oh!" he said, as if at last he understood, and said no more.
"How can I work up sympathy for people I have never seen?" she asked.
He did not answer her—brushed his hair very slowly.
"Nobody can say I should. Anybody in my place would feel as I feel."