Emmy grew violently crimson.  Her voice had a roughness in it.  She was mortally wounded.

“Anybody’d know you were a lady!” she said warmly.

“They’re welcome!” retorted Jenny.  Her eyes flashed, glittering in the paltry gaslight.  “He’s never ...  Emmy, I didn’t know you were such a silly little fool.  Fancy going on like that ... about a man like him.  At your age!”

Vehement glances flashed between them.  All Emmy’s jealousy was in her face, clear as day.  Jenny drew a sharp breath.  Then, obstinately, she closed her lips, looking for a moment like the girl in the sliding window, inscrutable.  Emmy, also recovering herself, spoke again, trying to steady her voice.

“It’s not what you think.  But I can’t bear to see you ... playing about with him.  It’s not fair.  He thinks you mean it.  You don’t!”

“Course I don’t.  I don’t mean anything.  A fellow like that!” Jenny laughed a little, woundingly.

“What’s the matter with him?” Savagely, Emmy betrayed herself again.  She was trembling from head to foot, her mind blundering hither and thither for help against a quicker-witted foe.  “It’s only you he’s not good enough for,” she said passionately.  “What’s the matter with him?”

Jenny considered, her pale face now deadly white, all the heat gone from her cheeks, though the hard glitter remained in her eyes, cruelly indicating the hunger within her bosom.

“Oh, he’s all right in his way,” she drawlingly admitted.  “He’s clean.  That’s in his favour.  But he’s quiet ... he’s got no devil in him.  Sort of man who tells you what he likes for breakfast.  I only go with him ... well, you know why, as well as I do.  He’s all right enough, as far as he goes.  But he’s never on for a bit of fun.  That’s it:  he’s got no devil in him.  I don’t like that kind.  Prefer the other sort.”

During this speech Emmy had kept back bitter interruptions by an unparalleled effort.  It had seemed as though her fury had flickered, blazing and dying away as thought and feeling struggled together for mastery.  At the end of it, however, and at Jenny’s declared preference for men of devil, Emmy’s face hardened.

“You be careful, my girl,” she prophesied with a warning glance of anger.  “If that’s the kind you’re after.  Take care you’re not left!”

“Oh, I can take care,” Jenny said, with cold nonchalance.  “Trust me!”

vii

Later, when they were both in the chilly scullery, washing up the supper dishes, they were again constrained.  Somehow when they were alone together they could not quarrel:  it needed the presence of Pa Blanchard to stimulate them to retort.  In his rambling silences they found the spur for their unkind eloquence, and too often Pa was used as a stalking-horse for their angers.  He could hardly hear, and could not follow the talk; but by directing a remark to him, so that it cannoned off at the other, each obtained satisfaction