The strain was too great. It had broken the Greta of old days. And just as, after the wreck of some great liner, only trifles are left floating over the grave of the Titan, so the woman's surface theatricalism survived the loss of more considerable things.
"With people like us, our hand is against every man," she declaimed in a husky voice, "and every man's hand is against us."
"That's not true. My hand isn't against you."
"We shall see."
"Indeed we shall!"
Greta had made an effort to pull herself up and face the girl more squarely, as though that call to "see" had imposed some change in the focus of vigilance.
This was not the visit she had been expecting. It had taken her unaware. With a new self-distrust, an unwonted slowness, she was collecting her wits and her physical forces, without for an instant losing sight either of the obvious danger or the possible unique opportunity presented by Nan's coming. To seize the occasion to recover some of her hold over the girl—that could endanger nothing. It might even serve.
"If you must believe," Nan was saying, "that my hand is against you,"—barb-like, the phrase had stuck, quivering,—"you needn't think everybody's hand is."
"With the exception of that one, whose isn't?"
The question was awkward.