"Oh, no, I don't mean that, you know what I mean. He was ill, unhappy; you did not make him more unhappy?"
"It is always for him!" cries the girl, with jealous anger. "Is there never to be a thought for me? Am I nothing to you? Am I never unhappy? Why don't you ask if he was kind to me?"
"Was he ever unkind?"
"Well, you can forget! He said dreadful things to me—dreadful. I am not likely to forget them if you are. After all, they did not hurt you."
"Joyce!"
"Yes, I know—I know everything you would say. I am ungrateful, abominable, but——He was unkind to me! He said what no girl would ever forgive, and yet you have not one angry word for him."
"Never mind all that," says Mrs. Monkton, soothingly. "Tell me what you did to-day—what you said."
"As little as possible," defiantly. "I tell you I don't want ever to see him again, or hear of him; I think I hate him. And he looked dying." She stops here, as if finding a difficulty about saying another word. She coughs nervously; then, recovering herself, and as if determined to assert herself anew and show how real is the coldness that she has declared—"Yes, dying, I think," she says, stubbornly.
"Oh, I don't think he looked as bad as that!" says Barbara, hastily, unthinkingly filled with grief, not only at this summary dismissal of poor Felix from our earthly sphere, but for her sister's unhappiness, which is as plain to her as though no little comedy had been performed for the concealment of it.
"You don't!" repeats Joyce, lifting her head and directing a piercing glance at her. "You! What do you know about him?"