Her face stooped closer, fascinating, chilling me like a cold cloud with its bright, hunted, malevolent stare. She stretched out a hand and wrung my shoulder. "Listen, I say. Come out of that trance! I loathe you, you holy imp. You haunt me!"
My eyes shut. I sat shivering, empty of self, listening, as if lost in a fog in a place desperately strange to me; and only a distant sea breaking and chafing on its stones far below. Then once more I became conscious of the steady and resolute droning of the bees; felt the breathing of actuality on my hair, on my cheek. My eyes opened on a garden sucked dry of colour and reality, and sought her out. She had left me, was standing a few paces distant now, looking back, as if dazed, her lips pale, her eyes dark-ringed.
"Perhaps you didn't quite hear all that, Midgetina. You led me on. You force things out of me till I am sick. But some day, when you are as desperate as I have been, it will come back to you. Then you'll know what it is to be human. But there can't be any misunderstanding left now, can there?"
I shook my head. "No, Fanny. I shall know you hate me."
"And I am free?"
What could she mean? I nodded.
She turned, pushed up her parasol. "What a talk! But better done with."
"Yes, Fanny," said I obediently. "Much better done with."
She gave me an odd glance out of the corner of her eye. "The queer thing is," she went on, "what I wanted to say was something quite, quite different. To give you a friendly word of warning, entirely on your own account.... You have a rival, Midgetina."
The words glided away into silence. The doves crooned on the housetop. The sky was empty above the distant hills. I did not stir, and am thankful I had the cowardice to ask no questions.