“Had you?  You look awfully green.”

“Yes, I had.”

“What’s the good of telling lies?”

“It’s no good telling the truth,” Robert answered stolidly.  “They only get crosser than ever.  She hadn’t any right to hit me.  She’s not even a relation.”

“She’s your step-mother.”

He began to tremble again uncontrollably.

“She’s n-not.  Not any sort of a mother.  My mother’s dead.”

It was the first time he had ever said it, even to himself.  It threw a chill over him, so that for a moment he stopped thinking of Edith and his coming black revenge.  He had done something that could never be undone.  He had closed and locked a great iron door in his mother’s face.  “She’s just a beast,” he repeated stubbornly.  “I’d like to kill her.”

Frances considered him with her head a little on one side.  It was like her not to enter into any argument.  One couldn’t tell what she was thinking.  And yet one knew that she was feeling things.

“I’d wipe that blood off,” she said.  “It’s trickling on to your collar.  No, not with your hand.  Where’s your hanky?”

He tried to look contemptuous.  He did, in fact, despise handkerchiefs.  The nice little girls in the Terrace had handkerchiefs, ostentatiously clean.  He had seen them, and they filled his soul with loathing.  Now he was ashamed.  It seemed that even Frances expected him to have a handkerchief.

“I haven’t got one,” he said.

“How do you blow your nose, then?”

“I don’t,” he explained truculently.

She executed one of her queer little dances, very solemnly and intently and disconcertingly.  It seemed to be her way of withdrawing into herself at critical moments.  When she stopped he was sure she had been laughing.  Laughter still twinkled at the corners of her mouth and in her eyes.

“Well, I’m going to tidy you up, anyhow.  Come sit down here.”

He obeyed at once.  It comforted him just to be near her.  It was like sitting by a fire on a cold day when you were half frozen.  Something in you melted and came to life and stretched itself, something that was itself gentle and compassionate.  It was difficult to remember that he meant to kill Edith frightfully, though his mind was quite made up on the subject.  Meantime Frances had produced her own handkerchief—­a large clean one—­and methodically rubbed away the blood and some of the tear stains, and as much of the dirt as could be managed without soap and water.  This done, she refolded the handkerchief with its soiled side innermost, and tied it neatly round the wounded head, leaving two long ends which stood up like rabbit’s ears.  A gust of April wind wagged them comically, and made mock of the sorrowful, grubby face underneath.  Even Frances, who was only nine herself, must have seen that the sorrow was not the ordinary childish thing that came and went, leaving no trace.