“Well,” said Paul, “if she looks at a man she says haughtily ‘Nevermore,’ and if she looks at herself in the looking-glass she says disdainfully ‘Nevermore,’ and if she thinks back she says it in disgust, and if she looks forward she says it cynically.”
Edgar considered this speech, failed to make much out of it, nd said, laughing:
“You think she’s a man-hater?”
“She thinks she is,” replied Paul.
“But you don’t think so?”
“No,” replied Paul.
“Wasn’t she nice with you, then?”
“Could you imagine her nice with anybody?” asked the young man.
Edgar laughed. Together they unloaded the coal in the yard. Paul was rather self-conscious, because he knew Clara could see if she looked out of the window. She didn’t look.
On Saturday afternoons the horses were brushed down and groomed. Paul and Edgar worked together, sneezing with the dust that came from the pelts of Jimmy and Flower.
“Do you know a new song to teach me?” said Edgar. He continued to work all the time. The back of his neck was sun-red when he bent down, and his fingers that held the brush were thick. Paul watched him sometimes.
“ ‘Mary Morrison’?” suggested the younger.
Edgar agreed. He had a good tenor voice, and he loved to learn all the songs his friend could teach him, so that he could sing whilst he was carting. Paul had a very indifferent baritone voice, but a good ear. However, he sang softly, for fear of Clara. Edgar repeated the line in a clear tenor. At times they both broke off to sneeze, and first one, then the other, abused his horse.
Miriam was impatient of men. It took so little to amuse them—even Paul. She thought it anomalous in him that he could be so thoroughly absorbed in a triviality.
It was teatime when they had finished.
“What song was that?” asked Miriam.
Edgar told her. The conversation turned to singing.
“We have such jolly times,” Miriam said to Clara.
Mrs. Dawes ate her meal in a slow, dignified way. Whenever the men were present she grew distant.
“Do you like singing?” Miriam asked her.
“If it is good,” she said.
Paul, of course, coloured.
