"I don't bovver," he said, with a cross look in the direction of his brother and sister Rochesters. "No, but, Lucy, s'pose some one—nurse, s'pose—did fall down into the street and broke all her legs and arms, she wouldn't be dead, would she?"
"You silly little boy, of course not."
He looked at Lucy, saw the frown upon her forehead, and felt suddenly that all his devotion to her was wasted, that she didn't want him, that nobody wanted him—now when the sun was making the garden glitter like a jewel and the fountain to shine like a sword.
He felt in his throat a hard, choking lump. He came closer to his sister.
"You might pay 'tention, Lucy," he said plaintively.
Lucy broke a daffodil stalk viciously. "Go and talk to the others," she said. "I haven't time for you."
The tears were hot in his eyes and anger was in his heart—anger bred of the rain, of the noise, of the confusion.
"You are howwid," he said slowly.
"Well, go away, then, if I'm horrid," she pushed with her hand at his knee. "I didn't ask you to come here."
Her touch infuriated him; he kicked and caught a very tender part of her calf.