It only means you won't have any
to-morrow. Neither Jean nor I want it--and the pot can be washed and put
away then."
"No--no. I don't want it," cried the girl passionately. "Aunt Janet, I
want to go away."
Her eyes were sparkling, her breath coming fast and short.
"Go away?"
"Yes. I can't stay here. What's to happen to me if I do? Oh what's to
happen to me?"
"You'll be happier staying here till you drop out of life," said the
woman, looking at her intently.
"Oh no--no! I'd rather be smashed up and killed--like grandfather was,"
cried Marcella passionately.
"Yes, I suppose one would--at eighteen," Aunt Janet mused reminiscently.
"But where can you go?"
"Oh anywhere--I don't care. I'll go anywhere--now--to-night. Aunt, I'm
not cruel and unkind, am I, to want to go away? I'll come back to you.
I'll be kinder when I come back," she cried anxiously. "I can't stop
here and be petrified."
For two days Aunt Janet thought and pondered while Marcella raged about
Ben Grief with the wings of all the swifts and swallows on earth in her
feet. She faced many things these two days--she planned many things. She
was like a generalissimo arranging details of the taking of the enemy's
entrenchments before ever the recruiting for his army had begun. She was
full of thoughts and intentions as ungraspable and spacious as the Milky
Way.
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