“Will you kindly ask Miss Rosaleen to step here for a minute?” he said. “We won’t trouble you long!”
His air of disgust, of superiority, stung the unhappy woman to still worse behaviour. She could not stop; she took a sort of monstrous delight in going on, in defying the warnings of her conscience and her pride.
“Evidently you don’t understand,” she said. “You seem to think the girl is a relative. She isn’t. My sister found her posing for a class of art students, and she felt sorry for her and brought her home. My sister was very good to her, and for her sake I’ve gone on feeding and clothing her. She does a little light work round the place, to pay for her keep....”
Suddenly all her annoyance, her years of irritation with Rosaleen, her ill-temper kept under such iron control, all the suffering she had endured from this false calm, this false pleasantness, this inhuman repression of her natural self, burst forth.
“I’m sick and tired of it!” she cried. “Such nonsense! The girl, with her airs and graces.... Just a common, low Irish girl.... She’s had advantages I never had in my young days.... I’m sick and tired of it! It’s the final straw, for her to be asking company here.... I won’t have it! It’s my home, after all, and there’s no place in it where she can entertain!”
They were all silent, aghast at her violence, her coarse cruelty. Her voice was loud, so loud as to arouse Mr. Humbert from his work. He thrust his venerable head out of his door, but instantly popped it in again. Miss Amy, horrified at herself, trembling with rage, ready to burst into tears, cried out, suddenly——
“You can just take them into the kitchen!”
And stood aside, pointing down the passage.
“Come along, Aunt Emmie!” said Nick. “Come away before I——”
But she had entered, and was going along the passage. Rosaleen went before her into the kitchen, drew forward the one chair, and droned another in from the dining room. Mrs. Allanby, gracious and kind, sat down, and smiled at Rosaleen.