The lady gave a little cry and hoisted a white shoulder. “Oh, Purcell, you are hurting me dreadfully. Do be more gentle with me. You are tearing my hair out by handfuls. What can it matter to you where Miss--where the housekeeper dines?”
“Ho,” said Purcell, “little or nothing--to me, ma'am. I cannot help my thoughts. But I keep them to myself. Not one word in this house--downstairs--of Miss Percival. Not one word. They keep their mouths shut, I promise you, and their eyes open. But what you will, you will. As for Mr. Ingram, the less I say the better.”
“Much the better,” said Mrs. Wilmot, fretfully wriggling under the comb.
That fine afternoon--April budding into May--this lady listened to Ingram in the garden. Of all sounds in the world the sweetest music for her ear was made by a man's voice embroidering the theme--_“You are lovely, you are cruel, I die.”_ Ingram's descant on the golden phrase was querulous, after his manner. He took his lover's smarts, as one must suppose them, hardly. As thus: _“You are lovely_--but what's that to me, if I can't touch you? You sting my eyes, you inflame, you wound--or I think you do; here am I, tied by the leg to a dead woman--for dead to me she is, the she-cat Sanchia--looking at you because I can't help myself. You are soft and lax, you purr when I stroke you; I could make a pet of you. Was ever a man of property and station in such a case?”
_“You are cruel_--because, though I could put out my hand and take you, yet you expect me to do it. That's all over, for me. I've done that sort of thing--Sanchia knows. Now I must trouble you to advance. I'm sick of life on these terms: you could make life worth living. I must really trouble you: sorry to seem languid, but I _am_ languid. You, with your fine sensibilities, ought to be the first to feel that; but no: you wait, looking exquisite, with eyes like blue-black water, and a mouth, a mouth like a flower. You soft gossamer beauty, I could crush you where you hover; but you won't come and be crushed. Certainly, you are cruel.”
_I die._ He avoided that. It was absurd. She thought for one moment that he hinted it when he said, shrugging off his ranges of hot-house--“Good of their kind, I fancy. But what good are they to me--a solitary beggar? I never go into 'em, you know. I thought I should take an interest when I had 'em put up. It looked like it--But now! who cares whether I go into 'em or not? Who cares whether I live or die?” There had been a pathetic ring there.