At that they were silent, their eyes in their laps. They were both hot and sore, though they could not have told why: and they both said to themselves over and over again that they must make allowances—make allowances.
Suddenly Laura put her hand on Mrs. Cloud’s knee.
“Mrs. Cloud—dear Mrs. Cloud—I didn’t mean—I only wanted——”
“What do you want, Laura?”
“I don’t want him prompted,” said Laura rather pitifully. “I want him to give it to me because he wants to give it to me. Not because it’s the thing to do. I want——” She laughed. “I want too much, don’t I?”
“Men look at things so differently,” said Mrs. Cloud in her turn. Her anger had come and gone again like a puff of summer wind.
“Yes, I know.”
“He’s very fond of you, my dear,” said Mrs. Cloud.
“Yes. But men——Oh, I wish we were all women,” cried Laura. “Things would be so much simpler. One could just talk them out. But you can’t talk your own language to a man, can you? We’re like those Indian princes at the Durbar from the north and the south, whose only common language was English. Even Justin and I talk English, I suppose, not our own languages. At least—I’d talk mine, only Justin gets bored.” She laughed suddenly. “But I’m getting a smattering of his,” said Laura with satisfaction, “more than he thinks. I’ll—I’ll surprise him some day, p’raps! Am not I thine ass? Wouldn’t Justin jump?” Her eyes danced. She looked as wicked as a cat—no Laura of Justin’s acquaintance at all.
“What’s the matter with you, child?” cried Mrs. Cloud bewildered, and at that her mood changed and her face with it. She slipped down on to the floor, half sitting, half kneeling at Mrs. Cloud’s feet, and began (an old privilege) to play with the loose rings on the beautiful hand with its blue raised veins and its skin like a dried petal, twisting them this way and that to make them sparkle.