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gave with the right, and no mistake,’ he said.
She laughed in amusement at him.
‘But what was the matter with you?’ he asked. ‘I know
you were brooding something special. I can see the stamp
of it on your face yet.’
‘I think I will not tell you,’ she said.
‘All right, hug it,’ he answered.
She flushed and bit her lip.
‘No,’ she said, ‘it was the girls.’
‘What about ‘em?’ Paul asked.
‘They have been plotting something for a week now, and
to-day they seem particularly full of it. All alike; they insult
me with their secrecy.’
‘Do they?’ he asked in concern.
‘I should not mind,’ she went on, in the metallic, angry
tone, ‘if they did not thrust it into my face—the fact that
they have a secret.’
‘Just like women,’ said he.
‘It is hateful, their mean gloating,’ she said intensely.
Paul was silent. He knew what the girls gloated over. He
was sorry to be the cause of this new dissension.
‘They can have all the secrets in the world,’ she went on,
brooding bitterly; ‘but they might refrain from glorying in
them, and making me feel more out of it than ever. It is—it
is almost unbearable.’
Paul thought for a few minutes. He was much per-
turbed.
‘I will tell you what it’s all about,’ he said, pale and ner-
vous. ‘It’s my birthday, and they’ve bought me a fine lot

1 Sons and Lovers