'You mean—you think I bully her?—she thinks so?'
'She—she feels—you so dreadfully disapprove of her!' said Nelly, sticking to it, but smiling.
'She regards me as a first-class prig in fact?'
'No—but she thinks you don't always understand.'
'That I don't know what a splendid creature she is, really?' said Marsworth with increasing agitation. 'But I do know it! I know it up and down. Why everybody—except those she dislikes!—at that hospital, adores her. She's wearing herself out at the work. None of us are fit to black her boots. But if one ever tries to tell her so—my hat!'
'Perhaps she doesn't like being praised either,' said Nelly softly.
'Perhaps she thinks—an old friend—should take it all for granted.'
'Good Lord!' said Marsworth holding his head in desperation—'whatever I do is wrong! Dear Mrs. Sarratt!—look here—I must speak up for myself. You know how Cicely has taken of late to being intolerably rude to anybody she thinks is my friend. She castigates me through them. That poor little girl, Daisy Stewart—why she's ready at any moment to worship Cicely! But Cicely tramples on her—you know how she does it—and if I interfere, I'm made to wish I had never been born! At the present moment, Cicely won't speak to me. There was some silly shindy at a parish tea last week—by the way, she's coming to you to-day?'
'She arrives for lunch,' said Nelly, looking at the clock.
'And the Stewarts are coming to the cottage in the afternoon!' said
Marsworth in despair. 'Can you keep her away?'
'I'll try—but you know it's not much good trying to manage Cicely.'