Part 29 (2/2)

At which remark Diana grunted and turned away.

It is a funny thing that a burst of self-sacrifice often leaves us in a bad temper. Diana was no model heroine, only a very ordinary and rather spoilt girl. The reaction after giving up her pony had sent her spirits down to zero, and if all her doings are to be faithfully chronicled, it must be confessed that for a day or two she did not display herself at her best. She was snappy even with Loveday, and matters came to an open quarrel with Hilary, who, as prefect, was inclined to be dictatorial. A war of words followed; Hilary threatened to appeal to Miss Todd, and Diana, defeated but unrepentant, retired vowing vengeance.

”I'll pay you out some day; see if I don't!” she declared hotly.

”You're not worth noticing!” retorted Hilary, shrugging her shoulders.

Diana retired to the ivy room, had a thoroughly good cry, and came down with red eyes, but feeling better. She did not speak to Hilary again, however, for days.

Meantime, examinations were drawing near. Although Miss Todd conducted her school on absolutely modern lines, she still clung to examinations as being some test of a girl's attainments. The seniors in especial were anxious to distinguish themselves. It was their last chance before they left, and all, with the exception of Stuart and Ida, who were to remain as gardening students, were leaving at the end of the term. The breaking up of her school-days meant an anxious time for Loveday. When they were alone in the ivy room she sometimes confided her troubles to Diana.

”I don't know what I'm to do next. Uncle Fred has told me plainly that the little sum of money my father left has been nearly all spent on my education, and that he himself can't do anything for me. I'd like to go and take a proper training for something--kindergarten, or horticulture, or domestic economy. But how can I when there's nothing to do it on? I suppose it'll end in my going out as a nursery governess.”

”Oh, Loveday!”

”Well, what else can I do? I daresay I'd love the children, and be quite happy in a way, but the worst of it is, it's such a blind alley, and leads to nothing. It's all very well to be a nursery governess when you're eighteen, but I'd like to be something better at thirty-six. If you want to get anything decent in the way of a post you have to train.”

Diana, to whom all these ideas were fresh and bewildering, was trying to adjust her brains to the new problems. She wrenched her mind from the near present, and took a mental review of Loveday's far future.

”But aren't you going to get married?” was the result of her cogitations.

Loveday, busy plying her hair-brush, shook her long flaxen mane dolefully.

”I don't say I wouldn't _like_ to. But I don't think it's at all likely.

I'm not an attractive kind of girl; I know that well enough. I'm so shy.

I never know what to say to people when they begin to talk to me. They must think me a silly goose. You should see my cousin Dorothy; she's always the very life and soul of a party. If I were like _that_ now! I don't suppose anybody'll ever trouble to look at me twice. I'm sure Auntie thinks so. No; I expect I've just got to make up my mind to be a nursery governess for the rest of my days.”

Diana, still in a state of mental bewilderment, looked at pretty Loveday sitting on the bed brus.h.i.+ng out her silky fair hair, and her memory switched itself back suddenly to the last evening of their motor trip.

She had been sitting in the lounge of the hotel, and through the open door could see Giles standing in the hall. Loveday had come running downstairs. Diana would never forget the look that for an instant flashed across Giles's face. It contained something that she had not yet altogether grasped or realized.

”I wouldn't make up my mind too soon if I were you,” she said slowly.

”You might change it some day.”

Whatever the future might hold in store, the present was the most immediate concern. Loveday wished to take back a good report to her uncle and aunt, and studied hard so as to obtain a fair place in the examination lists. She had just a faint hope that if they thought she showed any intellectual promise they might consider it worth while to have her trained. They had never made much of her attainments, but if she could come out third or fourth in the school she felt they would be pleased. It would be impossible to overstep Geraldine or Hilary, but her work was tolerably on a level with Ida's and Stuart's, and certainly above Nesta's.

It was just at this crisis that Miss Todd offered a prize for the best essay on ”The Reconstruction of England after the Great War, and its Special Application to Women's Labour and Social Problems”.

It was rather an ambitious topic for girls to tackle, but the seniors attacked it with the crude courage of seventeen. It is often easier at that age to state our opinions than later, when our minds wobble with first-hand experience of the world. At any rate, it gives a force and style to an essay to be absolutely sure that what you write in it is the final thing to be said on the subject. The girls scribbled away, tore up many sheets, showed bits to admiring friends, and felt themselves budding auth.o.r.esses. Public opinion, surging round the school, had already fixed the laurel wreath on the head of Hilary. Hilary exhibited decided literary ability; she had quite a clever knack of writing, and had composed several short stories. When she read these aloud--in bed--her thrilled listeners decided that they were worthy of appearing in print.

”Why don't you send them to a magazine?” urged Peggy, who slept in Dormitory 4.

”Perhaps I may some day--but please don't tell anybody a word about it,”

said Hilary, putting the cherished stories away again inside her dispatch-case.

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