Thinking that, as a painter’s daughter, and a person of education superior to his own, she spoke with a flavour of sarcasm, he felt humbled and said—
‘You did not use to talk like that to me.’
‘I was perhaps too young then to take any pleasure in giving pain,’ she observed daringly.
‘Does it give you pleasure?’
Anne nodded.
‘I like to give pain to people who have given pain to me,’ she said smartly, without removing her eyes from the green liquid in her hand.
‘I ask your pardon for that.’
‘I didn’t say I meant you—though I did mean you.’
Bob looked and looked at her side face till he was bewitched into putting down his brush.
‘It was that stupid forgetting of ’ee for a time!’ he exclaimed. ‘Well, I hadn’t seen you for so very long—consider how many years! O, dear Anne!’ he said, advancing to take her hand, ‘how well we knew one another when we were children! You was a queen to me then; and so you are now, and always.’