I ran after her, but she reached
the door before me, and, dragging her bandaged foot behind her, drew
herself, toward Christine. "You are _not_ going away! You are not! you
are not!" she sobbed, clinging to her skirts.
Christine was reading tranquilly: Edward stood at the outer door mending
his fishing-tackle. The coolness between them remained unwarmed by so
much as a breath. "Run away, child: you disturb me," said Christine,
turning over a leaf. She did not even look at the pathetic little bundle
at her feet. Pathetic little bundles must be taught some time what
ingratitude deserves.
"How can she run, lame as she is?" said Edward from the doorway.
"You are not going away, are you? Tell me you are not," sobbed Felipa in
a passion of tears, beating on the floor with one hand, and with the
other clinging to Christine.
"I am not going," said Edward. "Do not sob so, you poor little thing!"
She crawled to him, and he took her up in his arms and soothed her into
stillness again: then he carried her out on to the barren for a breath
of fresh air.
"It is a most extraordinary thing how that child confounds you two," I
said. "It is a case of color-blindness, as it were--supposing you two
were colors."
"Which we are not," replied Christine carelessly. "Do not stray off into
mysticism, Catherine."
"It is not mysticism: it is a study of character--"
"Where there is no character," replied my friend.
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