She would only sigh. To a person who was fond of conversational give-and-take it was trying.

And the name of the girl who shared my bedroom was Travers--Hester--generally known as Hetty--Travers. She was, well, she is one of my dearest friends at this hour, and she may see this, so I don't want to say anything to hurt her feelings, but she certainly was a mischievous imp. Mischief brimmed out of her finger-tips. And the point was that she had such an excessively demure air that you never had the faintest notion that she was that kind of person till the truth was forced upon you. Even then you gave her the benefit of the doubt; or you tried to--at least I did--until it was obviously absurd to attempt to do so any longer since there was no doubt. Reverence!

she did not know what it was. She had not a mite of respect for me, though I was a good three months her senior. She used to make fun of all the varying things I held most sacred--that is, while the mood was on me.

That inveterate habit of hers ought to have made me suspect her. But I was ever a Una for innocence. She was always taking me in. She had an insidious way about her which would take in anybody.

One night we were going to bed. I had one stocking off, and was wondering how the holes did get into the toes; I used to bribe other girls to do my darning. It cost me frightful sums. We were talking about other people's peculiarities, as was our agreeable custom.

"You know Miss Frazer told me to walk with her when she took us out to-night. I kept talking to her all the time, and yet the whole way there and back she never spoke a word. I believe she's going mad."

"I shouldn't wonder."

Hetty was doing her hair. I was wishing she would make haste, because she was using the only gla.s.s we had, and it seemed to me that she never would have done with it. What discussions we had about that looking-gla.s.s! We took it in turns to use it first, and whoever had first turn used to hang on to it as if it was the Koh-i-noor.

Something struck me in her tone.

"Why shouldn't you wonder?"

"I shouldn't." This was cryptic. But I was aware that it was advisable to give her a little rope. So I held my peace and found another hole.

And presently she added, "When a woman's heart is breaking she sometimes does go mad."

"Hetty!"

I had been giving utterance to my sentiments on the subject of the importance which love plays in human lives; I think I got them from Byron. Hetty had been scoffing. I suspected her of paraphrasing my words with mischievous intention. But it seemed that she was actually in earnest.

"You talk about love wrecking people's lives, as if you know anything at all about it; I saw that paper-covered Byron in your workbox--and you can't see what's taking place underneath your very eyes."

"Hetty, what do you mean?"

"Poor Miss Frazer!"

She sighed, actually. Or she emitted a sound which appeared to me to be a sigh. A light dawned on me.

"You don't mean--you don't mean that you think that she's in love?"

Miss Frazer was short, square, and squat. Sandy-haired, with not much of that. Short-sighted, her spectacles would not keep straight owing to the absence of a bridge on her abbreviated nose. Freckled, you might have been able to stick a pin between some of the freckles, but I doubt it. To me, then, she seemed ancient; but I suppose she was about forty. And, considering her general appearance and style of figure, she had a most unfortunate fondness for Scotch plaids. Up to that moment my sentimentalism had been all theory. I had not a.s.sociated the tender pa.s.sion with Miss Frazer. It was left for Hetty to direct my theoretical sympathy into a practical channel.

"Do I think? No, I do not think."

"Do you know that she's in love?"

"I know nothing. I want to know nothing. I will know nothing. But with you, who are always talking, it is different."

"Hetty, if you don't tell me what you mean, I--I--I'll throw my shoe at you."

"Throw away. You never hit anything you aimed at yet." She went on calmly brushing her hair, as if she had not made me all over pins and needles. Presently she gave utterance to an observation which was Sphinx-like in its mystery: "A Frenchman thinks no more of breaking an Englishwoman's heart than--than of eating his breakfast."

"Hetty! what do you mean?"

"Ask Monsieur Doumer."

Monsieur Doumer! Ask Monsieur Doumer! Why, M. Doumer was our French master, as unromantic-looking an example of the one s.e.x as Miss Frazer was of the other. He was immensely stout, perfectly bald-headed, with cheeks and skin which looked as if they were covered with iron-mould, because he never shaved them. That anything feminine could regard with equanimity the prospect of being brought within measurable distance of that scrubby countenance did seem incredible. And yet here was Hetty hinting.

"Do you mean to say that Miss Frazer's in love with M. Doumer?"

"You say yourself that she seems to be going mad."

"Yes; but I don't quite see what that has to do with it."

"Not when a woman's being trampled on?"

"Trampled on? Really, Hetty, I do wish you would say straight out what it is you're driving at. You can't be suggesting that M. Doumer has been literally trampling on Miss Frazer, because, since he weighs about two tons, she'd have been killed upon the spot."

"There are more ways of killing a pig than one."

"You are mysterious. I daresay you think it's clever, but I think it's stupid."

"Are there not more ways of killing a pig than one?"

"I daresay there may be; but I don't see what that has to do with Miss Frazer."

"I don't say that it has anything to do with Miss Frazer. But, as I began by observing, when you consider how every Frenchman considers himself ent.i.tled to treat an Englishwoman exactly as he pleases, and perceive where Miss Frazer is plainly drifting, I should have thought you would have been able to see something for yourself." She seemed to me to be more mysterious than ever. "Perhaps," she added, as if by an afterthought, "if someone were to take him to task, and give him to understand that an Englishwoman is not a football for anyone to kick about, matters might be brought to wear a different aspect. But no doubt, as she is alone and unprotected, he knows that there is nothing of that kind to be feared. Because, of course, no one is going to play Don Quixote for a freckled Scotchwoman."

"I don't see why not. I should have thought that the fact of her being alone and--and not good-looking--would have made anyone with a grain of chivalry in them stand up for her all the more on that account."

"It looks like it! When you yourself just said that she is going mad because of the way she has been treated."

I had not said that or anything of the kind. I was trying to think of what I had said when the door opened and Miss Frazer herself came in.

She had her watch in her hand, at which she was pointing an accusatory finger. I do not know what time it was--she did not give us a chance to see--but I expect it was later than we had supposed, because, taking the candle off the dressing-table, she marched straight out of the room with it without a word, and left us in total darkness.

"Well," I exclaimed, "this is pleasant. I'm not undressed, you've had the looking-gla.s.s all the time, and I haven't done a single thing to my hair, and I never can do anything to it in the dark."

"When a woman is in the state of mind in which she is, those who have to do with her have to put up with her. Don't blame her. Don't even think hard things of her. Try sometimes to practise, what you preach."

What Hetty Travers meant I again had not the faintest notion. She certainly had no right to hint such things of me. It seemed impossible that the mere contemplation of Miss Frazer's doleful plight could have moved her to tears; but while I fumbled with my hair in my indignant efforts to do it up in one decent plait in the darkness she did make some extraordinary noises, which might have been stifled sobs.

The following morning, during recreation, when I went into the schoolroom to get a book which I had left, I found Miss Frazer crouching over her desk, not only what I should call crying, but positively bellowing into her pocket-handkerchief. I stared at her in astonishment.

"Miss Frazer! What is the matter?" She bellowed on. A thought occurred to me. "Has--has anyone been treating you badly?"

Since she was so taciturn when calm, I expected her to be dumb when torn by her emotions. But I was mistaken. Taking her handkerchief from before her streaming eyes--her spectacles lay on the top of the desk, and I noticed how comical she looked without them--she spluttered out,--

"I'm the worst treated woman in the whole world!"

"Someone has been making you unhappy?"

"Cruelly, wickedly unhappy!"

"But have you no one to whom you can go for advice and a.s.sistance?"