Florence did not say anything. She shut up her mouth into rather a hard line. Edith Franks nodded twice to herself; then, putting on her pincenez, she proceeded to read the manuscript. She had a perfectly well-trained voice without a great amount of expression in it. She read on at first slowly and smoothly. At the end of the first page she paused for a moment, and looked full up at her companion.
"How well you have been taught English!" she said.
Still Florence did not utter a word.
At the end of the second page Miss Franks again made a remark.
"Your writing is so good that I have never to pause to find out the meaning of a word, and you have a very pure Saxon style."
"Oh, I wish you would go on, and make your comments at the end," said Florence then, in an almost cross tone.
"My dear, that answer of yours requires medicine. I shall certainly insist upon your taking a tonic to your room with you. I can dispense a little already, and have some directions by me. I can make up something which will do you a lot of good."
"Do go on reading," said Florence.
Edith Franks proceeded with the manuscript. Her even voice still flowed on without pause or interruption. At the end of the third or fourth page, however, she ceased to make any remarks: she turned the pages now rapidly, and about the middle of the story her voice changed its tone. It was no longer even nor smooth: it became broken as though something oppressed her, then it rose triumphant and excited. She had finished: she flung the manuscript back almost at Florence's head with a gay laugh.
"And you pretend, you pretend," she said, "that you are a starving girl—a girl out of a situation! You are a sham, Miss Aylmer—you are a sham."