She held Dot from her a minute, and scanned the flushed face with eyes that saw everything.
‘I wish I was,’ Dot said, in a stifled tone, ‘
just yours.’
Anger crept into the mother’s big eyes. ‘Has Larrie?’—she said, ‘Larrie, has he—does he?’—indignation overcame her.
‘Oh no,’ said Dot, ashamed of so nearly infringing the law. ‘Larrie’s all right—what are you running your head against, small woman?’
‘He is good to you?’ suspiciously.
‘Very good.’
She got up and went to the piano. ‘I came to have a good practice,’ she said. ‘One can’t with baby about.’
She screwed up the stool, opened the lid, and got out a pile of music. Wagner was at the bottom of the canterbury, and she sought for him, and then attacked him with level brows.
[p 36]
]By the time she had made ten mistakes, and the little mother’s head was aching, there was the click of an opening gate.