He simply stood there for a moment, stunned, before calling out for his mother. In retrospect, that probably had not been the best idea. His mother, after all, was after whom he modeled his own sarcastic behavior. So he strode off, fuming, to the faint sound of his mother applauding the efforts of…her. That wicked, ungrateful-

She was one of the few things that made him lose his temper. He truly was mild-mannered. To a point. But she brought out the worst in him, the real him. The derisive, egotistical, domineering Higgins that he hated because of its reality. Even his mother could not elicit such feeling in him. Maybe it had been at Ascot, he thought, when he realized how unlike the emotionless upper class she was, and, by association, he was. She had made him blunt.

Well, she hadn't done it, he conceded, not completely. His own stupidity, his own regularity. He was a slave to routine, and she shattered it. Then, slowly, he had built it back up again, but this time she was included. She became a part of that routine.

But-damn! Damn it all, she was stuck there. That was why he would miss her. The only reason. He wanted her back to fetch and carry for him, and put up with his tempers. The phrasing sounded familiar to him. In a moment of slight pain he realized that it was Eliza's. No-hers. It was easier to bear when he didn't say her name.

And she was being stupid, that was another thing. Just stupid. To marry that witless, gall-less, gutless Freddy, that upper-class fishbait. He'd run off with the next floozy that took his notice. And then she'd be devastated. Live with her father, no doubt, or wherever she had lived before the bet, for he wasn't going to take her back. Where had she lived? He realized that he had never bothered to ask her that. Never bothered to ask her much of anything, for that matter. Six months-six months of opportunity to say to her about something, anything that wasn't "Say 'rain.'" She wasn't the fool. He was

Perhaps he didn't need her, anyhow. Let her go off and make mistakes. Become so poor and in debt and out of love that she needn't bother about thought or compassion. Let her see how it felt to be the victim of a lonely life. Let her go and sell flowers and pick thorns off roses until her fingers bleed. He didn't need her. He didn't need her!

No, he thought. He didn't need her. He could get along without her, no matter what he had said. Perfectly fine. He had done it for years, more than he liked to think on. And he had Pickering, didn't he? He'd get on without her. He didn't need her!

But the sad fact was-he wanted her. Wanted her to be there, making his house feel like a home, disobeying Mrs. Pearce, yelling at him, for God's sake! Just to get her back.