Consequences

nd of

lf years that elapsed between those summer holidays at Fiveapples Farm and h

to miss Queenie less acutely than she had done when she first came home for the holidays, and with Qu

a's, and shrank from her advances unmistakably. She had very little in common with her French contemporaries, and knew that they thought her English

self-expression for her over-developed emotional capabilities produced in her a species of permanent discontent that reacted on her

lized system, and partly of her total lack of any int

lle a son air b

enterreme

not their fault that such pin-pricks stabbed her and sent her away t

, and received meagre and unsatisfactory replies, and then gradually the correspondence ceased altogether, and Alex only looked forward with an oc

ligion as understood at the convent. She prolonged her weekly confession, which had hitherto been a matter of routine to be got through as rapidly as possible, in order to ob

ed to her that she

would be displayed in the mediocrity which had all along been her portion. She had never been admitted to the virtuous society of the enfants de Marie, had never taken more th

ric's power of concentration, and her abilities were not such as to win her any

over the e

in the school. Alex could read the dates, and the proper names, and all the principal words on her history paper, and transferred them to her own,

gain next to Marie-Louise, and congratulated herself that the paper should be the literature one. Arithmetic, she knew, was not the strong p

down to say her prayers, she was sudd

ame between

nishment, could bridge-and even then, an indelible entry against one's name testified to eventual exposure and shame at some dreadful, inevitable assizes, when sins hidden and forgotten, large and small, of commission and omission alike, would be made kn

ed from the hot July morning, and the breaking-up, when the result

ing values in her mind, to remember that it was the day

ieve her failure in the afternoon was irresistible, when she

ency in the subject, strenuously taught to the convent pupils out of enormous old-fash

x f

uck her as inconvenient, and did not awake in her any fear of detection, when presently Marie-Louis

ing for the removal of the blotting-paper. Her eyes met those of a younger child, seated exactly opposite to her, whose sharp, dark gaze was fixed up

om her face and she

l which is the hall-mark of the habitual deceiver,

ed at the covering blotting-paper, and the ear and piece

Louise

een Alex cheat, and had no doubt co

, expulsion, all whirled through her mind and left no permanent im

f the morning, unconscious of the passage of time, onl

she found herself obliged to get up and move across th

malade, A

coeur," said

rn appearance so pityingly, that Alex burst into a flood of tears that relieved the tension of her body, and sent her, quivering, but

her, and the downfall of all her boastings to Barbara. No doubt God had abandoned one so unworthy of His forgiveness-but So

irs for the evening preparation, and Marie-Louise, a trusted enfant de Marie, obtained permission to s

ry tap of cold water, Marie-Louise conducted her

s mentally and emotionally far too much exhausted for any effort, and

e was not a

e full, when she informed Alex that no one should ever know of the lapse from her, provided that Ale

I say to her

had accomplished her duty and felt no further interest on the po

ask she l

ouble of confession to her class-mistress, and let her papers go in with the others. She knew that she would not get a high place, for her work all through the term had b

cably planted in Alex' soul that she had been born with a natural love of evil, and that goodness was an abstract attitude of mind to which she could never do more than aspire

already knew dimly, and with a further sense of having strange, low standar

n she wanted

forget it, she mostly remembered it as merely the culminating sc

iège witho

s and the streaming rain that defiled the summers; she had hated the endless restrictions and the minute system of surveillance that w

be different. She never doubted that with long dresses and piled-up hair, her whole personalit

theory that her "coming out" would usher in the realities of life, and nothing impressed her more with a sense of the tremendous i

or you, so there'll be nothin' to do but try on, but, of course, I shall have to see the things myself before they finish them, and tell them about the colours; they're sure to wa

les, then she'll be able to do it for you every evening. I expect she'll have to do it every day to begin with, but you must try and learn. I should like

rlers every night-thank Heaven, I've never had to. As a matter of fact, they say fringes are goin' out now, but I'm cer

ntrast between all this preoccupation with her clothes and her appearance, and the austere mental s

n't bear to have a daughter who didn't care about her things-some girls are like that-so disappoint

e was as full of eager anticipations as Lady Isabel could wish, but was too mu

endeavours to express, by means which were not spon

dancin' lessons before next year. Dancin' fashions alter so quickly now-a-days,"

o to balls-yet,

ies, and for the last few years she had been considered too old

be till the spring. But there may be one or two affairs in the

not to let yourself get freckled in the sun-and then, when you come back to town in October, you can have your hair properly put up, and come ab

tant. She had never been the ce

was the culminating point to which

d her with a rather

is eldest sister's marked tendency to assume ai

and his "removes" succeeded one another with a rapidity only

nful of girls in general and of his sisters in particular, although he played wil

slyness characteristic of her in certain

ftily. "Didn't she have a sister who was bosom fri

d at the implication of the evanescent

September at the seasi

dged sufficiently protected from the profane gaze of possible trippers. But she had all the time the sense that these hot, leisurely

cis started for Scotland had rather disappointed A

t pavement, so that she dragged herself rather than walked, or stood on one foot so as to save the other, which had vex

lly become very beautiful, and it vexed and surprised her to find that her new frocks, still in a very incompleted stage, did not at once produce any startling cha

es just at present, Móddam, I'm afraid-at le

sk-how very vexin'. Really, the nuns must have been very careless to let

ything at all," chimed in Madame Marguerite most impressively. "It will simply be rui

htened hers

tle frock, the whole th

rably unequal to the resp

with its weight of elaborate yellow waves well on one side as she gazed at Alex, ha

le may fill out a b

all over, and she had gone back to the old blue co

here was the daily strugg

her unskilful hands, displayed a strong tendency to slip down the back of her neck. And however much she might brush and pull her hair over it, the

joyed those last schoolroom days of

formation would be effected, she was convinced that everything which she had