‘Talking of blows,’ says Carew, turning to her sharply, and somewhat indignantly, ‘I never knew anyone blow their nose like you, Betty; you’ve been at it now since early dawn.’
‘Well, I can’t help it,’ says Betty, very rightly aggrieved, ‘if I have got a cold in my head.’
‘I’ve a cold, too,’ says Jacky dismally—Jacky is always dismal—‘but it isn’t as bad as Betty’s. My head is aching, but Betty’s nose is only running.’
A frightful silence follows upon this terrific speech. Mr. Fitzgerald, who can always be depended upon at a crisis, breaks it.
‘Not far, I trust,’ says he, with exaggerated anxiety. ‘We could hardly spare it. Betty’s nose is the one presentable member of that sort in the family.’
Betty, between the pauses of this speech, can be heard threatening Jacky. ‘No, no; never! I won’t give it now. You’re a little wretch! Even if I promised to give it I don’t care. I’ll take it back. You shan’t have it now.’
But all this is so distinctly not meant to be heard that no one takes any notice of it, and any serious consequences are prevented by the fact that Dominick, rising, throws himself between the puzzled Jacky and the irate Betty. In the meantime, Crosby draws himself along the rug until he is even closer to Susan, who now again is looking serious.
‘What is troubling you, righteous soul?’ asks he lightly.
‘How do you know I am troubled? I am not, really.’
‘Yet you are thinking, and very gravely, too.’