"I can't make the best of you, Joyce," answered I, half appeased, "when I see you so cold towards the man whom you have sworn to love. I can't. I know you can't be different—people never become different—but, oh, you do make me angry."
"I'm sorry," said Joyce, penitently. "Don't be angry. Perhaps you don't quite understand, although you think you understand so well. I am proud, and I don't think I am fickle; but I am not cold either."
Why should her words have poured oil upon the flame which her gentleness but two minutes before had allayed? I don't know, but they maddened me.
"You're one or the other," I said. "You are cold, or you are fickle." I went up to her and took hold of her by the wrist—the left wrist, for the right hand still held the blue bowl. "Which is it?" I said, in a low voice; "which is it?"
Her face grew very pale, but she neither winced nor struggled. "Don't, Meg," she said.
"Yes, I will," cried I, fiercely. "Which is it, tell me?"
"It's neither," repeated she.
"I tell you you lie!" cried I. "You are as cold as ice. Frank knows it; Frank feels it. It is killing his love for you. Ah, go away; for pity's sake, go away, or I don't know what I shall say!"
I flung her hand away from me and rushed towards the door; but the sudden movement had jerked the bowl that she held out of her other hand; it fell onto the floor and was smashed into many pieces.
I turned round. Joyce had stooped down and was tenderly picking up the fragments. She had self-control enough to make me no reproach—she was always self-controlled; but the bowl was mother's best blue bowl. The sight of her there, with her concerned face, irritated me beyond endurance. Was there nothing in the world that was worse to break than a blue bowl? I went back to her again and stood over her, watching her with hands that trembled and heart that beat to very pain.