[In any other circumstance, something in her would snap abruptly shut as if I like you, Miss Poppell were the spring on some trap. Crack! Every impulse associated with the thing shut away where it might stifle itself, leaving only the exposed nerve of boiling frustration behind in the open air.
(Nastiness, you see, is habit and shield in equal measure.)
no subject
(Nastiness, you see, is habit and shield in equal measure.)
But she is tired and unprepared and Ellis has gone away and Mister Stark can hardly bear to speak to her and de Foncé is de Foncé and it will be quite some time before she sees Mister Dickerson and doesn't think at least a little of him carving off a piece of her and she doesn't want Byerly Rutyer to say 'I like you, Miss Poppell; I always have,' because either it's a lie which is dreadful or she is wrong and that is obviously twice as terrible.]
Oh. Well that's fine then, [she says very strictly indeed, and then bursts into tears.]