Amy meanwhile hurried upstairs, but May, who was coming down, met her on
the landing, and knew at once from her flushed face and peculiar
expression that something unpleasant had happened. For the moment she
did not connect it with either herself or Rusk, so she paused to ask
what was the matter.
Amy pushed past her roughly, “Leave me alone, can’t you? You’ve done
enough already.” And she went on into her own room.
Thither May followed her, at a loss to know what new offence she had
committed, for since their quarrel on the subject of Rusk they had
tacitly agreed never to mention him, and she herself had rarely been
with him alone. She was tired, however, of this attitude of perpetual
jealousy, and willing to go more than half-way in order to bring about a
reconciliation. It was impossible to go on living the way they lived
now, at enmity about a man who had never shown more than the most
ordinary friendship for either of them. When she entered the room Amy
lay stretched on the bed, her face turned to the wall, and May again
approached her.
“Has anything happened? What is it?” She spoke sympathetically, and with
the best intentions, but Amy turned on her as if her words concealed
some taunt.
“I suppose you have come in to triumph over me.... I wonder you weren’t
listening at the door! Perhaps you’d have been satisfied at last!”
There was something so utterly hopeless--so far as any question of
“making it up” went--in this childish obstinacy, this sort of fixed idea
which no amount of reasoning could ever overcome, that May recognized on
the spot the uselessness of attempting it.
“I don’t know what you’re referring to,” she said, not quite sincerely.
“I seem to have done something, but I really don’t know what it is.”
“You do--I know it was you. It was you who told him. He would never have
done it but for you.”
“Told him what? What has he done? What are you talking about?”
“Oh, you needn’t put on that little soft voice with me. You told him not
to let me come into the library. You put it into his head at any rate,
and he had the impudence to ask me not to come back another day.... I
hate him.... I will get papa to send him away.”
“I never told him anything,” said May. “I don’t know what you think me
capable of. I’ve hardly even _spoken_ to him for the last month, and any
time I did speak to him you were there and heard all I said.”
“How do I know how often you see him?” cried Amy, bitterly. “Get out of
my sight, can’t you?” She sat up on the bed. “You’ve done nothing but
set him against me from the very first evening he came into the house.”
“Oh, but this is ridiculous!” May answered, losing patience. “If you’re
going to begin all that stuff over again----!” And she made a movement
toward the door.
“You can’t deny it then,” cried Amy, springing after her, her face
flushed and her eyes shining. “You _did_ tell him?”
“I never mentioned your name to him,” answered May disgustedly. “But
it’s useless talking to you. You seem to be half-mad about him. Only I
don’t know why you need perpetually drag me into it.”
“I’m not mad about him. I detest him. It’s you who are in love with
him.”
May took another step towards the door, but Amy grasped her suddenly by
the arm.
“Let me go. You’re hurting me,” May cried.
“Will you swear to me that you aren’t in love with him?” asked Amy
roughly. “Come--answer.” She gave a tug at the arm she held, and her
fingers sank into the soft flesh. May gave a cry of pain, but Amy being
bigger and stronger held her there, quite powerless to do more than
struggle a little. Finding it hopeless to free herself she at last gave
up the attempt.
“Do you want to keep him for yourself?” asked Amy fiercely. “Answer,
can’t you?”
“I don’t want him at all,” said May, her voice trembling with anger. “I
shall speak to papa to-night and get him sent away. This kind of thing
is too unbearable. Papa will send him away at once when he knows.”
Her words, spoken very much at random, had an instantaneous effect upon
her sister. Amy’s manner underwent a pitiful transformation. All her
fierceness seemed to die out at once in the withering chill of this
wretched possibility. “I only asked you if you were in love with him,”
she said helplessly. “You needn’t answer if you don’t like, though after
all I’ve told _you_--” She relaxed her grasp of May’s arm, and though
she still stood between her and the door it was no longer to bar her
passage.
“I’m not in love with him,” said May, with as much dignity as she could
summon up. “I should be very sorry to be in love with anyone if it made
me behave in the way you’ve been going on lately.”
“Then will you stop speaking to him?” Amy asked naïvely.
“Stop speaking to him! How can I stop speaking to him?” She raised her
voice impatiently. “You talk in such a senseless way: as if you didn’t
know as well as I do----”
“I know you like him,” Amy interrupted obstinately.
“What is it to you if I _do_ like him? Does it do you any harm? Why
aren’t you jealous of Denis? I gave up going out sketching with him
because it annoyed you, and this is all the thanks I get. I’m not going
to give in to you any more. It only makes you worse. If you worry me
about him again I’ll do what I said I would do; I’ll tell papa.”
Amy looked at her with heavy, sullen eyes. “You have never cared for
anyone,” she answered. “You don’t understand. You couldn’t care for
anyone if you tried. You don’t know what love is.”
“Love!” echoed May scornfully. “Do you remember when you were in love
with the gardener’s boy? when you were in love with Jimmy Temple? Why, a
few minutes ago you said you hated him.”
Amy made no reply. She turned away, and May left her to her own
thoughts. These were gloomy in the extreme. She threw herself down on
the bed once more, and lay staring at the ceiling. She hated Rusk, she
hated everything, as her excitement gradually died down to a kind of
sullen irritation. When she thought of how all along he had managed, as
if by a deliberate scheme of action, to make her behave abominably both
to him and to everybody else, to bring out all the worst elements in her
nature, she wished that her father _would_ send him away, she wished
she had never seen him. And she knew that May liked him and that he
liked May, though that he was in love with her she did not really
believe. It was the danger that he might become so that troubled her.
May was certainly trying to attract him. For herself, whatever way she
turned she seemed to be met by a high, unscalable wall, bringing her up
sharply, barring all progress, yet pierced with tiny loopholes through
which she could just get a glimpse of an unattainable joy beyond.