Yet he went on feeling cheap; and when Tussie who was
hurrying along with a cup of chocolate in each hand ran into him and
spilt some on his sleeve the sudden rage with which he said "Confound
you, Tussie," had little to do with the hot stuff soaking through to
his skin and a great deal with the conviction that Tussie, despised
from their common childhood for his weakness, smallness and ugliness,
would never have done what he had just done and betrayed what the girl
had chosen to keep secret from her maid.
"But why secret? Why? Why?" asked Robin, torn with desire to find out
all about Priscilla.
"I'm going to do this often," said Priscilla, looking up at him with a
pleased smile. "I never saw such easily amused little creatures. Don't
you think it is beautiful, to give poor people a few happy moments
sometimes?"
"Very beautiful," said Robin, his eyes on her face.
"It is what I mean to do in future," she said dreamily, her chin on
her hand.
"It will be expensive," remarked Robin; for there were nearly two
hundred children, and Priscilla had collected the strangest things in
food on the long tables as a result of her method, when inviting, of
asking each mother what her child best liked to eat and then ordering
it with the lavishness of ignorance from Minehead.
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