For her own part, she felt, she wouldn't have cared, but
she remembered Abel's anger because of the kiss by the brook, and
the thought hardened her heart. It was foolish of men to make so much
importance of kisses.
"I'm sorry, but I can't. Don't ask me, Jonathan--all the same you are a
darling!"
Then before he could detain her, she had slipped away from him through
Kesiah's door, which she closed after her.
"Aunt Kesiah," he heard her exclaim joyously, "Jonathan is going to take
me to Old Church to spend to-morrow!"
Kesiah, in an ugly grey dressing-gown, tied at the waist with a black
cord, was drying Mrs. Gay's sheets before the radiator. At Molly's
entrance, she turned, and said warningly, "Patsey is rubbing Angela
after her bath. What was that about Old Church, dear?"
"Jonathan has promised to take me down there to-morrow."
"To spend the day? Well, I suppose we may trust you with him." From her
manner one might have inferred that the idea of not trusting anybody
with Jonathan would have been a joke.
She went on calmly shaking out Mrs. Gay's sheets before the radiator, as
if the conversation were over, while behind her on the pale green wall,
her shadow loomed distinct, grotesque, and sexless.
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