“Obstinacy; woman’s obstinacy, I suppose, my dear.”
“Well, I suppose it is,” growled Sikes. “I thought I had tamed her, but she’s as bad as ever.”
“Worse,” said Fagin thoughtfully. “I never knew her like this, for such a little cause.”
“Nor I,” said Sikes. “I think she’s got a touch of that fever in her blood yet, and it won’t come out—eh?”
“Like enough.”
“I’ll let her a little blood, without troubling the doctor, if she’s took that way again,” said Sikes.
Fagin nodded an expressive approval of this mode of treatment.
“She was hanging about me all day, and night too, when I was stretched on my back; and you, like a blackhearted wolf as you are, kept yourself aloof,” said Sikes. “We was poor too, all the time, and I think, one way or other, it’s worried and fretted her; and that being shut up here so long has made her restless—eh?”
“That’s it, my dear,” replied the Jew in a whisper. “Hush!”
As he uttered these words, the girl herself appeared and resumed her former seat. Her eyes were swollen and red; she rocked herself to and fro; tossed her head; and, after a little time, burst out laughing.