Mildred Caniper closed her eyes. "Please ask him not to do it in my presence."
"I'll tell him when he comes again," Helen answered agreeably, and her stepmother realized that the only weapons to which this girl was vulnerable were ones not willingly used: such foolish things as tears or sickness; she seemed impervious to finer tools. Helen's looks at the moment were unabashed: she was trying to remember what Zebedee had said, both for its own sake and to gauge its effect on Notya to whose memory it was clear enough, and its naturalness, the slight and unmistakable change in his voice as he spoke to Helen, hurt her so much with their reminder of what she had missed that pain made her strike once more.
"This is what I might have expected from Miriam."
"But," said Helen, all innocence, "she doesn't care for him."
"And you do."
She did not wish to say yes; she could not say no; she kept her half-smiling silence.
"How long has this been going on?" The tones were sharp with impotence.
"Oh—well—since you went to Italy. At least," she murmured vaguely, "that was when he came to tea."
But Mildred did not hear the last homely sentence, and Helen's next words came from a great distance, even from the shuttered room in Italy.
"And why should you mind? Why shouldn't we—like each other?"