“Then why have you come back at all?” cried Halliday, his voice rising to a kind of squeal.

“She comes as she likes,” said Birkin. “Are you going to sit down, or are you not?”

“No, I won’t sit down with Pussum,” cried Halliday.

“I won’t hurt you, you needn’t be afraid,” she said to him, very curtly, and yet with a sort of protectiveness towards him, in her voice.

Halliday came and sat at the table, putting his hand on his heart, and crying:

“Oh, it’s given me such a turn! Pussum, I wish you wouldn’t do these things. Why did you come back?”

“Not for anything from you,” she repeated.

“You’ve said that before,” he cried in a high voice.

She turned completely away from him, to Gerald Crich, whose eyes were shining with a subtle amusement.

“Were you ever vewy much afwaid of the savages?” she asked in her calm, dull childish voice.