"
"If you don't see it this minute you'll see it in another ten years."
"Now," she said, "you're too clever for _me_."
They walked on in silence again. The mist gathered and dripped about
them.
Abruptly she spoke.
"Has anything happened?"
"No, it hasn't."
"I mean--anything horrid?"
Her voice sounded such genuine distress that he dropped his hostile
and contemptuous tone.
"No," he said, "why should it?"
"Because I've noticed that, when people are unusually horrid, it
always means that something horrid's happened to them."
"Really?"
"Papa, for instance, is only horrid to us because Mummy--my
stepmother, you know--was horrid to him."
"What did Mummy do to him?"
"She ran away from him. It's always that way. People aren't horrid on
purpose. At least I'm sure _you_ wouldn't be."
"_Was_ I horrid?"
"Well--for the last half-hour----"
"You see, I find you a little exasperating at times."
"Not always?"
"No. Not by any means always."
"Can I tell when I am? Or when I'm going to be?"
He laughed (not at all abominably). "No. I don't think you can. That's
rather what I resent in you."
"I wish I could tell. Then perhaps I might avoid it. You might just
give me warning when you think I'm going to be it."
"I did give you warning."
"When?"
"When it began."
"There you are. I don't know when it did begin. What were we talking
about?"
"I wasn't talking about anything.
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