Then she stumbled again, and we flew apart and fell into separate chairs. She put her hands to her side. Her breath came in catches. Her colour was higher than ever. Her cheek was damp. Her skirt stuck out like a little Dutch girl''s on a plate.
She caught my eye, and smiled; though she still looked frightened.
''I shall dance,'' she said, ''in London. Shan''t I, Sue?''◇思◇兔◇在◇線◇閱◇讀◇
''You shall,'' I said. And at that moment, I believed it. I made her rise and dance again. It was only afterwards, when we had stopped and she had grown cool, and stood before the fire to warm up her cold hands—it was only then that I remembered that, of course, she never would.
For, though I knew her fate—though I knew it so well, I was helping to make it!—perhaps I knew it rather in the way you might know the fate of a person in a story or a play. Her world was so queer, so quiet and shut-up, it made the proper world—the ordinary, double-dealing world, where I had sat over a pig''s head supper and a glass of flip while Mrs Sucksby and John Vroom laughed to think what I would do with my share of Gentleman''s stolen fortune—it made that world seem harder than ever, but so far off, the hardness meant nothing. At first I would say to myself, ''When Gentleman comes I''ll do this''; or, ''Once he gets her in the madhouse, I''ll do that.'' But I''d say it, then look at her; and she was so simple and so good, the thought would vanish, I would end up combing her hair or straightening the sash on her gown. It wasn''t that I was sorry—or not much, not then. It was just I suppose that we were put together for so many hours at a time; and it was nicer to be kind to her and not think too hard about what lay before her, than to dwell on it and feel cruel.