Page 84 - lady-chatterlys-lover

yond her: the keeper, and a little girl in a purple coat and
moleskin cap, crying.
’Ah, shut it up, tha false little bitch!’ came the man’s an-
gry voice, and the child sobbed louder.
Constance strode nearer, with blazing eyes. The man
turned and looked at her, saluting coolly, but he was pale
with anger.
’What’s the matter? Why is she crying?’ demanded Con-
stance, peremptory but a little breathless.
A faint smile like a sneer came on the man’s face. ‘Nay, yo
mun ax ‘er,’ he replied callously, in broad vernacular.
Connie felt as if he had hit her in the face, and she
changed colour. Then she gathered her defiance, and looked
at him, her dark blue eyes blazing rather vaguely.
’I asked YOU,’ she panted.
He gave a queer little bow, lifting his hat. ‘You did, your
Ladyship,’ he said; then, with a return to the vernacular:
‘but I canna tell yer.’ And he became a soldier, inscrutable,
only pale with annoyance.
Connie turned to the child, a ruddy, black-haired thing
of nine or ten. ‘What is it, dear? Tell me why you’re cry-
ing!’ she said, with the conventionalized sweetness suitable.
More violent sobs, self-conscious. Still more sweetness on
Connie’s part.
’There, there, don’t you cry! Tell me what they’ve done to
you!’...an intense tenderness of tone. At the same time she
felt in the pocket of her knitted jacket, and luckily found a
sixpence.
’Don’t you cry then!’ she said, bending in front of the