Sure of him, she laughed while she held his shoulders and made pretense of shaking him.
"But it was funny sometimes, only very few sometimes, it was like a baby going out with a little spade against a granite cliff. That's what she's like, Boy, a cold, hard, granite cliff. Maybe he bruised his head a little bit against the nasty, bad cliff. Well, never mind, mummy will make it well."
The Kitten drew his head against her breast. "There, there. Now it's all better. Nobody could beat down the cliff, so he mustn't feel bad, but just come——"
The Kitten bent forward from the shadows and, full in the bar of light, smiled at him. The last four months had made deep lines about her scarlet mouth. In the bar of white light she was ugly, with the ugliness of the small and withering. Herrick stepped back.
"You're ranting, Kitten. You don't know what you're talking about."
She blinked stupidly. She was almost hideous in her hungry fear.
"You don't understand. You can't understand women like Jean."
The Kitten got slowly to her feet.
"But she doesn't love you. You couldn't make a woman like that care."
Herrick's face reddened.