"Don't make eyes—you ain't pretty enough. What do you know of the world, you who live mewed up in a Board School? I daresay you believe all the rot you have to tell the little girls."
Her brother's shot made a wound he had not intended. Salvina was at last reminded of her own relation to the sordid tragedy, of what the other teachers would think, ay, even the little girls, so sharp in all that did not concern school-learning. Would her pupils have any inkling of the cloud on teacher's home? Ah, her brother was right. This disgrace besplashed them all, and she saw herself confusedly as a tainted figure holding forth on honour and duty to rows of white pinafores.
III
Meantime, her mother had toiled up—her jewels glittering curiously in the dusk—and now poured herself out to the fresh auditor in a breathless wail; recapitulated her long years of devotion and the abstracted contents of the house. But Lazarus soon wearied of the inventory of her virtues and furniture.
"What's the use of crying over spilt milk?" he said. "You must get a new jug."
"A new jug! And what about the basin and the coffee-pot and the saucepans and the plates! And my new blue dish with the willow-pattern. Oh, my God!"
"Don't be so stupid."
"She's a little dazed, Lazarus, dear. Have patience with her. Lazarus says it's no use crying and letting the neighbours hear you: we must make the best of a bad job, and cover it up."
"You'll soon cover me up. I won't need my clothes then—only a clean shroud. After twenty years—he wipes his mouth and he goes away! Tear the rent in your garments, children mine, your mother is dead."
"How can any one have patience with her?" cried Lazarus. "One would think it was such a treat for her to live with father. Judging by the rows you've had, mother, you ought to be thankful to be rid of him."