She sprang back with a little cry. Then stood there, her lip quivering, tears not far from her hazel eyes.
"I told you ... I wouldn't. Never again!"
"Oh! a kiss!—what's a kiss?" He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. "There—run away—can't you see I'm busy?" He sat down again at the table.
For a moment the child hesitated—for child she was by the test of time—love and resentment struggling within her; then, with tight lips, she flung away.
"Good Lord!" Stephen yawned. "Bother the girl. I've turned her head. I'd like to leave these beastly rooms—only there's that confounded bill. And Letty's useful, after a fashion."
His eyes fell on the fire. He knew she stole many a lump of coal when his meagre scuttle failed—pitying the improvident man she had made the hero of her dreams; under the spell of his green eyes and careless familiarity.
Meanwhile, as he sat and smoked one of Mrs. Uniacke's cigarettes, with which he had carefully filled his case after his last meal with her, the servant crossed Primrose Hill, through the damp evening air, and, gaining the terrace near the park, delivered her lord's begging letter.
Jill had not yet returned home. Roddy was far away at school and a silence hung about the house with its dingy blinds and fogged windows.
Mrs. Uniacke was upstairs, mending the edge of a shabby skirt that had suffered during a rainy day from a long tramp in a procession.
Indeed, the wear and tear of 'the Cause' reflected itself in her very clothes; but the thin face, with its bird-like look of brightness and vivid emotion, its high cheek-bones, and quick flush, was filled with the inner fire of hope.