no, no! these things have no interest for you. You shall have the nicest
dress that money can buy; and if the play succeeds----'

The girl raised her pathetic eyes. In truth, she cared not at all what he
talked to her about; she was occupied with her own thoughts of him, and
just to sit in the room with him, and to look at him occasionally, was
sufficient. But for once his words had pained her. It was because she could
not understand that he did not care to talk to her. Why did she not
understand? It was hard for a little girl like her to understand such
things as he spoke about; but she would understand; and then her thoughts
passed into words, and she said--

'I understand quite as well as Julia. She, knows the names of more books
than I, and she is very clever at pretending that she knows more than she
does.'

At that moment Mrs. Bentley entered. She saw that Emily was enjoying her
talk with her cousin, and tried to withdraw. But Hubert told her that he
had written the last act; she pretended to be looking for a book, and then
for some work which she said had dropped out of her basket.

'If Emily would only continue the talking,' she thought, 'I should be able
to get away.' But Emily said not a word. She sat as if frozen in her chair;
and at length Mrs. Bentley was obliged to enter, however cursorily, into
the conversation.

'If you have written out _The Gipsy_ from end to end, I should advise you
to produce it without further delay. Once it is put on the stage, you will
be able to see better where it is wrong.'