She dropped them
now, and looked at the tablecloth without speaking.
"When?" he repeated, and was breathless again in the horrible way she
remembered.
"I told you: I am not going to live in it at all, Mr. Gibbon."
He leaned towards her, throwing himself forward on his arms that were
folded upon the table; she felt his eyes glowering upon her down-bent
face: "Oh, yes, Miss Deleah!" he implored.
"I told you before," she said; and then distressedly like a child wearied
by importunities, "Oh I wish you--I wish every one would leave me alone!"
It was all very well to be pretty and admired, but not much gratification,
thanks to Bessie's jealousy, and untoward circumstances, had Deleah
experienced so far from looks or lovers.
There was a young assistant music-master, coming twice a week to Miss
Chaplin's, who had taken to blushing and paling when Deleah spoke to him.
To her great embarrassment a rosebud or a spray of forget-me-not would be
found deposited on the chair in which she sat to play propriety when the
pupils took their lessons. On the days when with great difficulty she
managed to elude Reggie, a lout of a grammar-school sixth-form boy, whose
name even she did not know, would watch her exit from the school, and
stalk at her heels, keeping sentinel over her, in a way that she felt was
making her ridiculous, to her own door.
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