'There! I've done with it! I'm sick of it all!'
'What?' asked the astonished Clement.
'I loathe it all,' she repeated. 'It is all of a piece—all ashes instead of bread.'
'You are not mimicking the Hepburns,' said her brother. 'I beg your pardon,' he instantly added.
'Mimicking! No, but like them I have learnt to rate all this frippery at its worth! If you had any depth of feeling, you would loathe it as I do. But that's the way you palter with truth and reality—deceiving and deceived.'
The voice and flash in her eyes directed these last words on Stella; but cutting short the reply that Clement was beginning, she again flew up-stairs, leaving the other two aghast.
'This is a new phase!' said Clement.
'I wonder if grief drives people into a sort of distraction,' said Stella, in a tone of excuse.
'Had the Hepburns been talking to her?'
'Yes; I thought she looked, when I came in, as if they had been some comfort to her.'