"I haven't time for you."
The tears were hot in his eyes and anger was in his heart--anger bred of
the rain, of the noise, of the confusion.
"You _are_ howwid," he said slowly.
"Well, go away, then, if I'm horrid," she pushed with her hand at his
knee. "I didn't ask you to come here."
Her touch infuriated him; he kicked and caught a very tender part of her
calf.
"Oh! You little beast!" She came to him, leant for a moment across him,
then slapped his cheek.
The pain, the indignity, and, above all, a strange confused love for his
sister that was near to passionate rage, let loose all the devils that
owned Bim for their habitation.
He did three things: He screamed aloud, he bent forward and bit Lucy's
hand hard, he seized Lucy's wonderful Russian mug and dashed it to the
ground. He then stood staring at the shattered fragments.
III
There followed, of course, confusion. Nurse started up. "The Shadow of
Ashlydyat" descended into the ashes, the children rushed eagerly from
beneath the table to the centre of hostilities.
But there were no hostilities. Lucy and Bim were, both of them, utterly
astonished, Lucy, as she looked at the scattered mug, was, indeed,
sobbing, but absent-mindedly--her thoughts were elsewhere.
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