“I didn’t see them last year.”
“No, I know you didn’t,” he said quickly; “you didn’t come to Lismoyle till the second week in June.”
“You seem to remember more about it than I do,” said Francie, still maintaining her attitude of superiority.
“I don’t think I’m likely to forget it,” he said, turning and looking at her.
She looked down at the ground with a heightening colour and a curl of the lip that did not come easily. If she found it hard to nurse her anger against Charlotte, it was thrice more difficult to harden herself to the voice to which one vibrating string in her heart answered in spite of her.
“Oh, there’s nothing people can’t forget if they try!” she said, with a laugh. “I always find it much harder to remember!”
“But people sometimes succeed in doing things they don’t like,” said Hawkins pertinaciously.
“Not if they don’t want to,” replied Francie, holding her own, with something of her habitual readiness.
Hawkins’ powers of repartee weakened a little before this retort. “No, I suppose not,” he said, trying to make up by bitterness of tone for want of argument.
Francie was silent, triumphantly silent, it seemed to him, as he walked beside her and switched off the drooping heads of the bluebells with his stick. He had experiences that might have taught him that this appetite for combat, this determination to trample on him, was a more measurable thing than the contempt that will not draw a sword; but he was able to think of nothing except that she was unkind to him, and that she was prettier now than he had ever seen her. He was so thoroughly put out that he was not aware of any awkwardness in the silence that had progressed, unbroken, for a minute or two. It was Francie to whom it was apparently most trying, as, at length, with an obvious effort at small talk, she said: