'
'But don't she hate Arabs, and Turks, and Fellahs, and people?'
'Certainly not.' Very firmly.
'At least she MUST hate the Pyramids? Come, Eddy?'
'Why should she be such a little - tall, I mean - goose, as to hate
the Pyramids, Rosa?'
'Ah! you should hear Miss Twinkleton,' often nodding her head, and
much enjoying the Lumps, 'bore about them, and then you wouldn't
ask. Tiresome old burying-grounds! Isises, and Ibises, and
Cheopses, and Pharaohses; who cares about them? And then there was
Belzoni, or somebody, dragged out by the legs, half-choked with
bats and dust. All the girls say: Serve him right, and hope it
hurt him, and wish he had been quite choked.'
The two youthful figures, side by side, but not now arm-in-arm,
wander discontentedly about the old Close; and each sometimes stops
and slowly imprints a deeper footstep in the fallen leaves.
'Well!' says Edwin, after a lengthy silence. 'According to custom.
We can't get on, Rosa.'
Rosa tosses her head, and says she don't want to get on.
'That's a pretty sentiment, Rosa, considering.'
'Considering what?'
'If I say what, you'll go wrong again.'
'YOU'LL go wrong, you mean, Eddy. Don't be ungenerous.'
'Ungenerous! I like that!'
'Then I DON'T like that, and so I tell you plainly,' Rosa pouts.
'Now, Rosa, I put it to you. Who disparaged my profession, my
destination - '
'You are not going to be buried in the Pyramids, I hope?' she
interrupts, arching her delicate eyebrows.
Pages:
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50