Yet
it was as if for the purpose of saying, "You are a nuisance to me, or
worse!" that he had asked her to his study. Her presence had hitherto
chiefly roused in him the half-amused, half-tender feelings of one who
strokes a foal or calf, watching its soft uncouthness; now, about to
say good-bye to her, there was the question of whether that was the only
feeling.
Miranda, stealing out between her master and his visitor, growled.
The little model, who was stroking a china ash-tray with her ungloved,
inky fingers, muttered, with a smile, half pathetic, half cynical: "She
doesn't like me! She knows I don't belong here. She hates me to come.
She's jealous!"
Hilary said abruptly:
"Tell me! Have you made any friends since you've been in London?"
The girl flashed a look at him that said:
'Could I make you jealous?'
Then, as though guilty of afar too daring thought, drooped her head, and
answered:
"No."
"Not one?"
The little model repeated almost passionately: "No. I don't want any
friends; I only want to be let alone."
Hilary began speaking rapidly.
"But these Hughs have not left you alone. I told you, I thought you
ought to move; I've taken another room for you quite away from them.
Leave your furniture with a week's rent, and take your trunk quietly
away to-morrow in a cab without saying a word to anyone.
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