At the name Rosalind shivered. The thought that followed it sent a knife-cut to her heart. This man that Sally had spoken of so unconsciously was her brother—at least, he was brother enough to her by blood to make that thought a blade to penetrate the core of her mother's soul. It was a case for her strength to show itself in—a case for nettle-grasping with a vengeance. She would grasp this nettle directly; but oh, for one moment—only one moment—just to be a little less sick with the slice of the chill steel! just to quench the tremor she knew would come with her voice if she tried now to say, "What was the name? Tishy's prétendu's, I mean; not his father's."
But she could take the whole of a moment, and another, for that matter. So she left her words on her tongue's tip to say later, and felt secure that Sally would not look up and see the dumb white face she herself could see in the mirror she sat before. For, of course, she saw Sally's reflection, too, its still thoughtful eyelids half shrouded in a broken coil of black hair their owner's pearly teeth are detaining an end of, to stop it falling in the paraffin she is so intent on, as she watches it cooling on the soap-dish.
"I've made it such a jolly big blob it'll take ever so long to cool. You can, you know, if you go gently. Only then the middle stops soft, and if you get in a hurry it spoils the clicket." But it is hard enough now to risk moving the hair over it, and Sally's voice was free to speak as soon as her little white hand had swept the black coils back beyond the round white throat. Mrs.
Lobjoit's mirror has its defects apart from some of the quicksilver having been scratched off; but Rosalind can see the merpussy's image plain enough, and knows perfectly well that before she looks up she will reap the harvest of happiness she has been looking forward to. She will "clicket" off the "blob" with her finger.
The moment of fruition comes, and a filbert thumbnail spuds the hardened lozenge off the smooth glaze. "There!" says Sally, "didn't I tell you? Just like ice.... What, mother?" For her mother's question had been asked, very slightly varied, in a nettle-grasping sense. She has had time to think.
"What was Tishy's man's name—the other applicant? Christian name, I mean; not his father's."
"Sir Oughtred Penderfield. Why?"
"I remember there was a small boy in India, twenty-two years ago, named Penderfield. Is Oughtred his only name?" The nettle-grasping there was in this! Rosalind felt consoled by her own strength.
"Can't say. He may have a dozen. Never seen him. Don't want to! But his hair's as black as mine, Tishy says.... I say, mother, isn't it deliciously smooth?" But this refers to the paraffin lozenge, not to the hair.
"Yes, darling. Now I want to get to bed, if you've no objection."