“You have breakfasted,” he said; “but doubtless you will yet have an appetite for this?”
She took it from him wonderingly. If he had designed it as a grimly ironical test of her disposition, he had reason to be discomfited by her reception of the pleasantry.
She glanced at the superscription—it was a little box of guava jelly,—then suddenly let the packet fall, and threw herself on her face upon the rug.
She lay so long and so still without sound or movement that presently he grew uneasy.
“Get up!” he cried at last, touching her—and hating himself for doing so—with his foot.
She stirred—rose to a sitting posture. Her eyes had a dazed, stunned look in them.
“Nicette!” he exclaimed, a little troubled by the fixity of her gaze. He saw then that she was gulping, as though trying to speak.
“What is it?” he asked, mutinous against the gentler spirit that was possessing him. He had to bend his head to hear her.
“While they lived—it was always he—that received—the praise, the tit-bit, the love.”
“Who received?”