"Go out of the room; return to the nursery," was her mandate. My look or
something else must have struck her as offensive, for she spoke with
extreme though suppressed irritation. I got up, I went to the door; I
came back again; I walked to the window, across the room, then close up
to her.
Speak I must: I had been trodden on severely, and must turn: but how?
What strength had I to dart retaliation at my antagonist? I gathered my
energies and launched them in this blunt sentence--
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"I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved you; but I declare I
do not love you: I dislike you the worst of anybody in the world except
John Reed; and this book about the liar, you may give to your girl,
Georgiana, for it is she who tells lies, and not I."
Mrs. Reed's hands still lay on her work inactive: her eye of ice
continued to dwell freezingly on mine.
"What more have you to say?" she asked, rather in the tone in which a
person might address an opponent of adult age than such as is ordinarily
used to a child.
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