She put out her hand again and touched them, first one and then the other.
‘I know I shall draw the wrong one,’ she said in a choking voice, she turned them over and examined them with pitiful criticism.
‘What did you make this one narrower than the other for?’
‘Is it?’ he said and looked.
His hand was not trembling at all, but in his heart there was a great aching for his little son.
‘I think I had better draw and have done with it.’
[p 126]
]The quick movement of her hand again showed her trust in him was not all it might have been—her fingers closed and unclosed round the wider piece. Her cheeks were burning, her breath coming in little quick pants.
‘Get it over, Dot,’ he said very gently.
She shut her eyes, her hand groped forward, her face grew very white. Then she unclosed her fingers and showed both little slips lying in her palm.
‘I won’t do it that way,’ she said with sudden passion, ‘as if he were a cushion in a bazaar, or a lottery ticket. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Larrie.’ She tore the paper into a hundred fragments and looked at him with wide, angry eyes.