"He's my father! I can speak to him if I choose," cried Louise shrilly.
"Now then, now then!" reasoned Mr. Denny heavily. "Can't have you rude to your mother, you know."
Louise gave herself up to her passion.
"She's not my mother! I call her Mamma! She's not my mother! Mother wouldn't be so cruel! To take away all I've got like that. Her books are there! Her things! It's always been our room—hers and mine! And to take it away! To put cook—it's horrible! It's wicked! It's stealing! I hate her! I hate you—all of you! I'll never forget—never—never—never!"
She stopped abruptly on a high note, stared blindly at the outraged countenances that opposed her, and fled from the room.
They listened to the clatter of umbrellas in the hall stand, to the furious hands fumbling for mackintosh and satchel, to the bang of the hall door.
Mr. Denny whistled.
"Hot stuff! What? I never knew she had it in her." There was a curious element of approval in his tone. He respected volubility.
His wife frowned; then, she, too, began to laugh. She was as incapable as he of imagining the state of nerves that could lead, in Louise, to such an outburst. To speak one's mind, noisily and emphatically, was a daily occurrence for her. Silence was stupidity, and meekness irritating. This "row" was unusual because Louise had taken part in it, but she certainly thought no worse of her step-daughter on that account. The child should be sent to bed early as a punishment, she decided, but good-humouredly enough. She was too thick-skinned to be pricked by Louise's repudiation. She dismissed it as "temper." Its underlying criticism of her character escaped her utterly.
By the time the attic was cleared and the paperhanger at work, she had forgotten the matter.