Mrs. Prior moves through all these things untouched by their beauty—on one thought bent. And all at once the subject of her thought lies there before her. The clearest, sweetest thought!
Ella, on one of the many small paths, is standing as if struck by some great surprise. She is looking at Mrs. Prior earnestly, half fearfully, with eager searching in her large dark eyes, as of one trying to work out some problem that had been suggested many years ago.
The sight of the girl, standing there with her hand pressed against her forehead as if to compel thought, drives the anger she is feeling even deeper into Mrs. Prior’s soul. Such an attitude! As if not understanding! The absurd put-on innocence of it is positively—well, disgusting!
And always Ella stands looking at her, as if frightened by the sudden unexpected visitor, but presently through her fear and astonishment another look springs into life. Her eyes widen—she does nothing, she says nothing, but anyone looking on would say that the girl all at once had remembered. But something terribly vague had touched her—something startling out of the past that until that moment had lain dead. Oh, surely she knows this lady, has met her somewhere.
As if impelled by this mad fancy, she goes quickly towards Mrs. Prior.
‘I—do I know you?’ asks she, in a low tense way.
‘I think not,’ says Mrs. Prior, in her calm trainante voice, that is now insolent to a degree. A faint, most cruel smile plays upon her lips. ‘You, and such as you, are seldom known by—us.’
The girl stands silent. No actual knowledge of her meaning enters into her heart, but what does come home to her in some vague way is that she has been thrust back—put far away—cast out, as it were.
‘I don’t understand,’ says she, a little faintly.
‘Oh, I think you do,’ says Mrs. Prior, with cultivated rudeness. ‘But I have not come here to-day to inform you as to your position in life. I have come rather to explain to you that your—er—relations with my nephew must come to an end—and at once.’