“Now if I wanted a thing and wanted it badly I should take good care never to be forgotten; I should let them see there was to be no peace as long as I was in the house; I should make myself felt from the garrets to the kitchen; I should gain my end,” she concluded with calm finality.
By this time the sun had forsaken their tree and had flickered on to one nearer the west, and in the evening light her face gleamed out almost ghastly in its pallor.
“Gwen, you’re queerer and queerer! Why don’t you do all this for yourself? You are quiet enough now, nothing only sulky, why don’t you do what you say I ought to, yourself?”
“For what?” was the sharp retort. “I don’t want boys and cricket and football and larks.”
“What do you want then?”
She jumped up from her pillow and looked out after the westering sun, her eyes dark and dilated, her red lips parted.
“What do I want?” she slowly repeated, “I want—oh, you would not understand what I want, but worrying won’t get it.”
She caught up her book again and threw herself face downwards on the sward.
“That’s the way! You’ll never tell me anything,” said Dacre angrily.
“I’ll tell you one thing, and that’s I’ll help you to go to school, and you’ll go if you aren’t a common ass, and if you’ll do all I tell you.”