It was she who broke the silence once more.
"Well," she drawled, coughing genteelly at the same time, "better late than never, as the saying is.I wonder who it is gits up all them comical sayings?" Apparently she had no genuine desire for light upon this mystery, as she continued, immediately: "I have a gen'leman friend that's always gittin' 'em off.`Well,' he says, `the best of friends must part,' and, `Thou strikest me to the heart'--all kinds of cracks like that.He's real comical.And yet, "she went on in an altered voice, "I don't like him much.I'd be glad if I'd never seen him."The change of tone was so marked that Ariel looked at her keenly, to find herself surprised into pitying this strange client of Joe's; for tears had sprung to the woman's eyes and slid along the lids, where she tried vainly to restrain them.Her face had altered too, like her voice, haggard lines suddenly appearing about the eyes and mouth as if they had just been pencilled there: the truth issuing from beneath her pinchbeck simulations, like a tragic mask revealed by the displacement of a tawdry covering.