“About—oh—whether a genius—whether she was a genius——”
“Madala, eh?”
“Yes, Auntie.”
I thought I heard him sigh. And at that—why, I don’t know—I turned on him. I was rude, I believe. I sounded silly and cruel, I know. Yet, heaven knows, that that was the last thing I wanted to be.
I said angrily to him—
“Oh, why do you stand there and listen? Don’t you see that I can’t help myself? Why don’t you go away? What good can it do you to stay here, to stay and listen to it all?”
Then I stopped because he looked at me for a moment, and flushed, and then did turn away, back again to his old dreary post at the street window.
Great-aunt chuckled.
“That’s right, little Jenny. Take your own way with them, Jenny!”
I said—