"That's a lie."
"But why should I hurt your hand? It is not even the hand you hit me with."
"Look out, you freak, I'll pay you out."
"I know."
There were no signs that he pitied his sister or looked upon himself as being to blame for her misfortune. His angular face was as calm as it always was, the expression of his eyes was serious and steady—it was impossible to believe that he could lie or be actuated by malice.
After that she did not go so often to his room. She was visited by her friends, chattering girls in bright coloured dresses, as noisy as so many crickets. They brought a welcome note of colour and gaiety to the large rooms, which were rather cold and gloomy—the pictures, the statues, the flowers, the gilt, everything seemed warmer in their presence. Sometimes his sister took them to his room. They affectedly held out their little pink-nailed fingers, taking his hand gingerly as if they were afraid of breaking it. They talked to him very nicely and pleasantly, looking a little astonished, but showing no particular interest in the little hunchback, busy in the midst of tools, drawings, pieces of wood and shavings. He knew that the girls called him "the inventor." His sister had impressed this idea upon them and told them that in the future something might be expected of him which would make the name of his father famous. His sister spoke of this with conviction.
"Of course he is ugly, but he is very clever," she reminded them very often.
She was nineteen years old, and had a sweetheart, when her father and mother both perished at sea. The yacht in which they were taking a pleasure trip was run down and sunk by an American cargo boat in charge of a drunken helmsman. She was to have accompanied them, but a sudden toothache had prevented her going.
When the news came of her father's and mother's death she forgot her tooth-ache, and rushed about the room throwing up her arms and crying:
"No, no; it cannot be."