“As to that,” she said, “and don’t imagine that I haven’t known what you came for, all of you——”
Her voice was sharp enough to have recalled anyone and it recalled Mr. Flood. He returned to the conversation with the air of dragging the blonde lady after him. She had the manner of one hanging back and protesting, and laughing still over some secret understanding. “Eh?” said he. “What’s that about Madala?”
“I’m telling you,” she said. “I’ve told you already, I can give you Madala Grey. Come here and I’ll give you Madala Grey still. That’s what you want, isn’t it, to be amused? She amused you.”
“It was her brains,” said the Baxter girl.
“A beautiful creature,” said Mr. Flood slowly.
“Not she!” The lady behind him was smiling. “She made you think so. She made men think so. But how? That intrigued me. Oh, she was prettyish: but that was all. I used to watch her——”
“No, not envy,” said that woman slowly. “She was too—innocent—how could one envy? She didn’t know her own strength. She said—‘Don’t hurt me,’ with a sword at her side.”
“Excalibur.” It came from Mr. Flood. “Magic.”
“No, Madala—just Madala.” Miss Howe sighed. “It’s no good, Anita, you can’t give us back Madala.”
But my cousin, looking at them, laughed in her turn.
“Madala? You fools! You’ve never had her. But you shall! Oh, wait! My books are dull, aren’t they? Yet you’ll be here, you know, every month, thick as bees, to listen to me. A chapter a month, that’s all I’ll give to you. _I_ don’t write three novels a year. But you’ll come, you’ll come. Proof? There’s plenty of proof. See here.”
She went swiftly across to the outer room. There was a large carved desk standing on the little table by the window. She picked it up. It was too big for her. It filled her arms so that she staggered under the weight.
He came back to the foggy room with a visible wrench.
“Here, that’s too heavy for you. Let me.” He took it from her.
“The table—here. Thank you, oh, thank you, Kent.” She veiled her voice as she spoke to him. “It’s heavy—it’s so full—books—papers——”
He put it down for her and nodded, and was straying away again when she stopped him.
“Kent! Don’t sit by yourself. We”—her voice was for him alone—“we’re talking about—her. I was going to show them—Kent, stay here with us.”