Thus it were almost impossible to exaggerate the loathing with which this high-spirited girl contemplated the pale oval face and slender swaying arms of her friend, as full of her new project she flung herself into her favourite arm chair and met Lacrima’s frightened eyes in the gilded Georgian mirror. She began her attack with elaborate feline obliquity.
“They say Mark Purvis’ crazy daughter has been giving trouble again. He was up this morning, talking to father about it.”
“Why don’t you send her away?” said the Italian, without turning round.
“Send her away? She has to do all the house-work down there! Mark has no one else, you know, and the poor man does not want the expense of hiring a woman.”
“Isn’t it rather a lonely place for a child like that?”
“Lonely? I should think it is lonely! But what would you have? Somebody must keep that cottage clean; and it’s just as well a wretched mad girl, of no use to anyone, should do it, as that a sound person should lose her wits in such a god-forsaken spot!”
“What does she do at—at these times? Is she violent?”
“Oh, she gets out in the night and roams about the woods. She was once found up to her knees in the water. No, she isn’t exactly violent. But she is a great nuisance.”
“It must be terrible for her father!”
“Well—in a way it does bother him. But he is not the man to stand much nonsense.”