“There, tell me what’s the matter, tell me!” said Connie, putting the coin into the child’s chubby hand, which closed over it.
“It’s the … it’s the … pussy!”
Shudders of subsiding sobs.
“What pussy, dear?”
After a silence the shy fist, clenching on sixpence, pointed into the bramble brake.
“There!”
Connie looked, and there, sure enough, was a big black cat, stretched out grimly, with a bit of blood on it.
“Oh!” she said in repulsion.
“A poacher, your Ladyship,” said the man satirically.
She glanced at him angrily. “No wonder the child cried,” she said, “if you shot it when she was there. No wonder she cried!”
He looked into Connie’s eyes, laconic, contemptuous, not hiding his feelings. And again Connie flushed; she felt she had been making a scene, the man did not respect her.
“What is your name?” she said playfully to the child. “Won’t you tell me your name?”
Sniffs; then very affectedly in a piping voice; “Connie Mellors!”
“Connie Mellors! Well, that’s a nice name! And did you come out with your Daddy, and he shot a pussy? But it was a bad pussy!”