She advances now, her expression cold and unkindly, and her hands still struggling with her hair, in her desire to reduce it to some sort of reason. ‘Why trouble yourself about it?’ says Crosby. ‘It is the prettiest thing I ever saw as it is.’ ‘It is not pretty to me,’ says Susan crushingly. Her arms are still above her head, and, as she speaks to him, she weaves into a superb coil the loose strands of her soft hair. In spite of this, however, the little locks around her brows, loosened and softened by the late washing, are straying wildly, flying here and there of their own sweet will, and making an aureole round Susan’s head, out of which her eyes gleam at Crosby with anything but friendship in them. ‘How d’ye do?’ says he blandly. ‘How d’ye do?’ says Susan in return. She lets her hand rest in his for the barest moment, then withdraws it. Crosby regards her reproachfully. ‘You are angry with me still,’ says he. ‘And after a whole night of reflection.’ ‘I am not angry at all,’ says Susan. ‘Why should you think so?’ ‘Yes, you are,’ says Crosby. ‘I can see it in your eyes. Your very hair is bristly. And all because—’ He stops, as if afraid to go on. ‘Because what?’ asks Susan, with a touch of severity. ‘Because I once got sixpence out of you!’ He is not able to resist it. ‘Tommy,’ says Susan, ‘your collar is dirty, and you must come back to the house with me to get another.’ As she speaks she catches Tommy, who has not yet got to the years of civilization, and who hates clean collars, and prepares to march him off. ‘Tommy,’ says Mr. Crosby, ‘wait a minute; your sister won’t, but perhaps you will. There is a photographer in town to-day; he has come down from Dublin. And your aunt says she would like to have some of you photographed.’ Here there is a distinct slowing in Susan’s march past, though she disdains to turn her head, or show further mark of interest. ‘Don’t you want to be photographed, Tommy? I do, badly.’ ‘What is it?’ asks Tommy, whose views of amusement as a rule mean lollipops, and those only, and who has no knowledge of cameras or kodaks. ‘It’s painful, as a rule,’ says Crosby. ‘But children seldom suffer. It’s only people of my age who come out with their noses twisted. Did you ever have your nose twisted, Tommy? It hurts awfully, I can tell you. But’—with a glance at Susan—‘other things hurt worse. You ought to speak to Susan, Tommy—to tell her that prolonged cruelty sometimes ends in the death of the victim.’ At this Susan faces round. ‘What I think is,’ says she, ‘that you ought to give me back that horrid sixpence.’ ‘It isn’t horrid.’ ‘You should give it back, at all events.’ ‘Oh, Susan, anything but that—my life even.’ ‘What’—with mounting indignation—‘can you want it for, except to annoy me?’ ‘Is thy servant a slave? I want it as a memento of the only occasion on record on which I was called a “kind, kind man,” and a “good” and an “honest” one besides. You did call me all that, Susan. And yet, now—’