"I'm sorry I did," said Octavian, and if there is a standard measurement
in truths Octavian's statement was assuredly a large nine.
"We shall be very sorry when we've killed Olivia," said the girl, "but we
can't be sorry till we've done it."
The inexorable child-logic rose like an unyielding rampart before
Octavian's scared pleadings. Before he could think of any fresh line of
appeal his energies were called out in another direction. Olivia had
slid off the roof and fallen with a soft, unctuous splash into a morass
of muck and decaying straw. Octavian scrambled hastily over the pigsty
wall to her rescue, and at once found himself in a quagmire that engulfed
his feet. Olivia, after the first shock of surprise at her sudden drop
through the air, had been mildly pleased at finding herself in close and
unstinted contact with the sticky element that oozed around her, but as
she began to sink gently into the bed of slime a feeling dawned on her
that she was not after all very happy, and she began to cry in the
tentative fashion of the normally good child. Octavian, battling with
the quagmire, which seemed to have learned the rare art of giving way at
all points without yielding an inch, saw his daughter slowly disappearing
in the engulfing slush, her smeared face further distorted with the
contortions of whimpering wonder, while from their perch on the pigsty
roof the three children looked down with the cold unpitying detachment of
the Parcae Sisters.
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