she said none
of these things, but murmured, smiling coldly, "Oh, there's a reason....
I'll tell you some time...."

The girl was hurt. Marion bit her lip while she watched her crossly pick
up her spoon and eat her ice pudding as if it was a duty. "This is like
old times," she essayed feebly. "I've so often watched Richard eat it.
He went through various stages with this pudding. When he was quite
small he used to leave the crystallised cherries to the very last,
because they were nicest, arranged in a row along the rim of his plate,
openly and shamelessly. When he went to school he began to be afraid
that people would think that babyish if they noticed it, and he used to
leave them among the ice, though somehow they always did get left to
the last. Then later on he began to side with public opinion himself,
and think that perhaps there was something soft and unmanly about caring
so much for anything to eat, so he used to gobble them first of all,
trying not to taste them very much. Then there came an awful holiday
when he wouldn't have any at all. That was just before he insisted on
going to sea. But then he came back--and ever since he's had it every
time we come here, and now he always leaves the cherries to the last."
She was now immersed in the story she told; she was seeing again the
slow magical increase of the small thing she had brought into the world,
and the variations through which it passed in the different seasons of
its youth, changing from brown candid gracefulness to a time of sulky
clumsiness and perpetually abraded knees, and back again to gracefulness
and willingness to share all laughter, yet ever remaining the small
thing she had brought into the world. With eyes cast down, trying to
dissemble her pride, lest the gods should envy, she added harshly, "He
was quite interesting ... but I suppose all boys go through these
phases.... I've had no other experiences...."

Ellen was longing to hear what Richard was like when he was a boy, but
she had been stung by that insolent, smiling murmur, and she could do
nothing with any statement made by this woman but snarl at her. "No
other experience?" she questioned peevishly. "I thought Richard said he
had a half-brother."

There was no longer any pride in Marion's eyes to dissemble. She stared
at Ellen, and said heavily, as one who speaks concerning the violation
of a secret, "Did Richard tell you that?" Before the girl had time to
answer cruelly, "Yes, he