Then, as her fingers brushed the small white back, there surged up in her a sudden virile tenderness and comprehension. She looked at Laura with Prothero's eyes, she touched her almost with Prothero's touch. There was, after all, some advantage in being made so very like a man, since it compelled her to take Prothero's view of a little woman in a mouse-coloured velvet gown.
The gown was fastened, and the Kiddy in an innocent vanity was looking over her left shoulder and admiring her mouse-coloured tail. Of a sudden she caught sight of Nina's eyes in the glass regarding her sombrely. She turned and put up her face to Nina's, and paused, wavering. She closed her eyes and felt Nina's arms about her neck, and Nina's hands touching her hair with a subtle, quick caress, charged with confession. Laura's nerves divined it. She opened her eyes and looked at Nina.
"Ah," she cried, "try not to hate me."
"Ah," she cried, "try not to hate me!"
Nina bowed her head. "Poor Kiddy, dear Kiddy," she whispered. "How could I?"
How could she?