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She received her share willingly and gratefully enough, but her smile and kiss were so evidently given to order, that they only testified to the thorough literality of her statement. Leenoo, Eiralé, and Elfé followed her example with characteristic exactness. Equally characteristic was the conduct of the others.
"She is never at fault because he never believes us against her," returned Leenoo. "How often would he have been right? I saw nothing of to-day's quarrel, but I know beforehand where the truth lay.
Chiefly to take her out of the way, and certainly with no idea of finding pleasure in her society, I selected Enva; next to Leenoo the most malicious of the party, and gifted with sufficient intelligence to render her malice more effective than Leenoo's stupidity could be.
I thought it might be developed into something almost as beautiful as that bright leenoo you admired so greatly in my flower-bed." "But," said I, "the two flowers are not of the same shape or colour; and, though I am not learned in botany, I should say hardly belong to the same family." "No," she said.
"That she should for once get the worst of it, and be disbelieved to sharpen the sting!" "How do you know?" asked Enva. "I don't feel so sure we have heard the last of it." "Eveena did not seem to have liked her half-hour," answered Leenoo spitefully. "Besides, if he did not disbelieve her story, he would have let her prove it." "Is that your reliance?" broke in Eunané.
Did you hear the proverb Leenoo muttered, very unjustly, when she left your room yesterday, 'A favourite wears out many sandals'? No! You see the very phrase wounds and disgusts you. But you would find it a true one. Can you take vengeance for a fault you have yourself provoked? Can you decide without inquiry, condemn without evidence, punish without hearing?
"That was caprice, not even dealing," said Leenoo. "You were not half so bad as Enva." "He made me own that I was," replied Eunané. "It never occurred to him to suppose or say that she did it on purpose. But I was cruel on purpose to the bird, if I were not spiteful to its mistress.
"But the first time you took me out, I heard the superintendent say some strange things; and then he checked himself when he found your companion was not Eveena. Then Eivé I mean you use expressions sometimes in talking to Eveena that we never heard before. I think there is some secret between you." "And if there be, Eunané, were you going to betray it to set Enva and Leenoo on to find it out?"
"It is intolerable," said Enva bitterly; "I detest her." "Is it her fault?" asked Eunané with some warmth. "They are so like each other and so unlike us, that I could fancy she came from his own world. I went to her next day in her own room." "Ay," interjected Leenoo with childish spite, "'kiss the foot and 'scape the sandal." "Think so," returned Eunané quietly, "if you like.
My audience had detained me longer than I had expected, and the evening mist had fairly closed in before I returned. Entering, not as usual through the grounds and the peristyle, but by the vestibule and my own chamber, and hidden by my half-open window, I overheard an exceedingly characteristic discussion on the incident of the morning. "Serve her right!" Leenoo was saying.
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