I am sorry to have to record it. It is always sweeter if a woman does
not box ears. The action is shrewish, benighted, mediaeval, nay,
barbarous; and this box was a very hard one indeed, extraordinarily
hard for so little a hand and so fasting a girl. But we know she had
twice already been on the verge of doing it; and the pent-up vigour of
what the policeman had not got and what the mother in the train had
not got was added I imagine to what Robin got. Anyhow it was
efficacious. There was an exclamation--I think of surprise, for surely
a young man would not have minded the pain?--and he put his hand up
quickly to his face. Priscilla got up just as quickly out of her chair
and rang the handbell furiously, her eyes on his, her face ablaze.
Annalise must have thrown herself down the ladder, for they hardly
seemed to have been standing there an instant face to face, their eyes
on a level, he scarlet, she white, both deadly silent, before the maid
was in the room.
"This person has insulted me," said Priscilla, turning to her and
pointing at Robin.
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