He had found himself quite unable in his anger to
clothe his hard sayings in forms of speech that would have hidden
their brutal force, and he had turned his back at last on her
answering bitterness and fled to Baker's, thankful to find when he got
there that Priscilla's beauty and the interest of the mystery that
hung about her wiped out every other remembrance.
Priscilla was in the big farm kitchen, looking on at the children
having tea. That was all she did at her party, except go round every
now and then saying pleasant little things to each child; but this
going round was done in so accomplished a manner, she seemed so used
to it, was so well provided with an apparently endless supply of
appropriate remarks, was so kind, and yet so--what was the word?
could it be mechanical?--that Robin for the hundredth time found
himself pondering over something odd, half-remembered, elusive about
the girl. Then there was the uncle; manifestly a man who had never
before been required to assist at a school-treat, manifestly on this
occasion an unhappy man, yet look how he worked while she sat idly
watching, look how he laboured round with cakes and bread-and-butter,
clumsily, strenuously, with all the heat and anxiety of one eager to
please and obey.
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