She made a desperate effort to detach herself from Stevey.
"The thorn-trees? Has anybody set fire to them?"
"Tha silly laass!——"
"What about the thorn-trees, Gwenda?"
"Only that they're all in flower," Gwenda said.
She didn't know where it had come from, the sudden impulse to tell
Ally about the beauty of the thorn-trees.
But the impulse had gone. She thought sadly, "They want me. But they don't want me for myself. They don't want to talk to me. They don't know what to say. They don't know anything about me. They don't care—really. Jim likes me because I've stuck to Ally. Ally loves me because I would have given Steven to her. They love what I was, not what I am now, nor what I shall be.
"They have nothing for me."
It was Jim who answered her. "I knaw," he said, "I knaw."
"Oh! You little, little—lamb!"