Page:Far from the Maddening Girls.djvu/52

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

on these occasions; indeed, I was more than apt to sniff. But she had an innocent way of turning up her eyes which, in a manner, disarmed me. For I have noticed that when a man turns up his nose at a woman, and a woman turns up her eyes at a man — well, it is like a vote to increase the pension list: the eyes have it, every time! So I came to tolerate her presence, and even to engage her in polite, if somewhat uneasy, conversation.

“I wonder,” I said on one occasion, “whether you have any conception of what all this means to me. Think of it! From now on I shall have everything my own way!”

“And you think you will enjoy that?” asked Miss Berrith.

“Why not?” I demanded.

“Why not, indeed?” she assented. “But has it never occurred to you that there is really more pleasure in having things another person’s way?”

It never had occurred to me, and I said so