"I thought the cleaning was over--not a comfortable room in the house for the last fortnight." Mr. Denny was testy.

His wife answered them thickly, her mouth full of pins as she adjusted her dusting ap.r.o.n.

"Very well! Ask cook to--no, she's upstairs. Cut them yourself. There's plenty of liver. Perfectly absurd! Do you want the house a foot deep in dust? You leave the household arrangements to me! The top-floor hasn't been done for years--not thoroughly."

"The top floor? Not the attics?" said Louise.

"Yes! I'm re-arranging the rooms. John's getting too big for the nursery. He needs a room to himself. I'm putting him in cook's old room."

Louise paused, the slice of bread half cut.

"Where's cook going?" said her father.

She awaited the answer, a fear catching at her breath.

"Oh, in the lumber-room," said Mrs. Denny easily. "It only wants papering. A nice, big room! A sloping roof, of course. But with her wages, if she can't put up with a sloping roof--! But it'll take some clearing! You wouldn't believe what an amount of rubbish has collected."

"It's not rubbish," said Louise. Her voice was low with pa.s.sion. "It's not rubbish! You shan't touch it."

Mrs. Denny spun round amazedly: Her step-daughter, the loaf clutched to her breast with an unconscious gesture, the big knife gleaming, was a tragi-comic figure.

"What on earth----?" she began.

Louise leaned forward, hot-eyed.

"Mamma! You won't! You can't! You mustn't! Father, don't let her! That's Mother's room! If you put cook in Mother's room----" She choked. A priestess defending her altars could have used her accents.

Mr. Denny put down his paper.

"What's the matter with the girl?" he demanded.

Mrs. Denny shrugged her shoulders.

"I've no idea! I don't know what she means. Put down that knife; Louise--you'll cut yourself. And mind your own business, please."

"You don't understand!" Louise fought for calmness, for words that should enlighten and persuade. "I didn't mean to interfere. But the big attic! Mamma! Father! That's my room. I always go there--do my lessons there--I love it! You don't know how I love it. You see----" She paused helplessly.

"But you've got the nursery to sit in," said Mrs. Denny, equally helpless. "I'm sorry, Louise, if you've taken a fancy to the room--but I want it for cook."

Louise made her way to the hearth and stood between the pair.

"Mamma--please! Please! Please! There's the other attic for cook--not this one!"

"Now be quiet, Louise!" Mrs. Denny was getting impatient.

Suddenly Louise lost grip of herself.

"It's not right! It's not right! You've got all the house! Every room is yours and you grudge me that one! n.o.body's ever wanted it but me!

It's mine! You've got your lovely rooms--drawing-room, and dining-room, and morning-room, and bedroom, and summerhouse, and the boys have got the nursery and the maids have got the kitchen, and yet you won't let me have the attic! It's not fair! It's mean! Why can't cook have the other attic? Not this one! Not this one!"

"But why? Why?" Mrs. Denny was more bewildered than angry. She looked down at her step-daughter as a St. Bernard looks at an aggressive kitten. Desperately Louise tore off her veils.

"Because of Mother. Can't you understand? All her things are there.

She's there! So I've always played up there. Oh, won't you understand?"

Mrs. Denny flushed.

"You talk a lot of nonsense, Louise. Finish your sandwiches. You'll be late."

"Then you will leave it, as it is?"

"Certainly not. I told you--I need it for cook."

Louise turned to her father with a frenzied gesture.

"Father! Don't let her! Don't let her touch it! Oh, how can you let her touch it?"

Mr. Denny put down his paper, staring from one to the other.

"Emma? What's she driving at?"

"To control the household, apparently. She's a very impertinent child,"

said Mrs. Denny impatiently.

"Father! I'm not! I don't! Father! I only want her to leave my attic alone! Father----"

"Don't worry your father now," began Mrs. Denny.

"He's my father! I can speak to him if I choose," cried Louise shrilly.

"Now then, now then!" reasoned Mr. Denny heavily. "Can't have you rude to your mother, you know."

Louise gave herself up to her pa.s.sion.

"She's not my mother! I call her Mamma! She's not my mother! Mother wouldn't be so cruel! To take away all I've got like that. Her books are there! Her things! It's always been our room--hers and mine! And to take it away! To put cook--it's horrible! It's wicked! It's stealing! I hate her! I hate you--all of you! I'll never forget--never--never--never!"

She stopped abruptly on a high note, stared blindly at the outraged countenances that opposed her, and fled from the room.

They listened to the clatter of umbrellas in the hall stand, to the furious hands fumbling for mackintosh and satchel, to the bang of the hall door.

Mr. Denny whistled.

"Hot stuff! What? I never knew she had it in her." There was a curious element of approval in his tone. He respected volubility.

His wife frowned; then, she, too, began to laugh. She was as incapable as he of imagining the state of nerves that could lead, in Louise, to such an outburst. To speak one's mind, noisily and emphatically, was a daily occurrence for her. Silence was stupidity, and meekness irritating. This "row" was unusual because Louise had taken part in it, but she certainly thought no worse of her step-daughter on that account.

The child should be sent to bed early as a punishment, she decided, but good-humouredly enough. She was too thick-skinned to be p.r.i.c.ked by Louise's repudiation. She dismissed it as "temper." Its underlying criticism of her character escaped her utterly.

By the time the attic was cleared and the paperhanger at work, she had forgotten the matter.