To leave St. Sidwell’s, abandon her post for three months, she who had never been absent for a day!  If she did that it would be all up with Miss Quincey; a hundred eager applicants were ready to fill her empty place.  It was as if she heard the hungry, leaping pack behind her, the strong young animals trained for the chase; they came tearing on the scent, hunting her, treading her down.

When Rhoda Vivian looked in after morning school, she found a flushed and embarrassed young man trying to soothe Miss Quincey, who paid not the least attention to him; she seemed to have shrunk into her bed, and lay there staring with dilated eyes like a hare crouched flat and trembling in her form.  From the other side of the bed Dr. Cautley’s helpless and desperate smile claimed Rhoda as his ally.  It seemed to say, “For God’s sake take my part against this unreasonable woman.”

Now no one (not even Miss Quincey) could realize the insecurity of Miss Quincey’s position better than Rhoda, who was fathoms deep in the confidence of the Head.  She happened to know that Miss Cursiter was only waiting for an opportunity like this to rid herself for ever of the little obstructive.  She knew too that once they had ceased to fill their particular notch in it, the world had no further use for people like Miss Quincey; that she, Rhoda Vivian, belonged to the new race whose eternal destiny was to precipitate their doom.  It was the first time that Rhoda had thought of it in that light; the first time indeed that she had greatly concerned herself with any career beside her own.  She sat for a few minutes talking to Miss Quincey and thinking as she talked.  Perhaps she was wondering how she would like to be forty-five and incompetent; to be overtaken on the terrible middle-way; to feel the hurrying generations after her, their breath on her shoulders, their feet on her heels; to have no hope; to see Mrs. Moon sitting before her, immovable and symbolic, the image of what she must become.  They were two very absurd and diminutive figures, but they stood for a good deal.

To Cautley, Rhoda herself as she revolved these things looked significant enough.  Leaning forward, one elbow bent on her knee, her chin propped on her hand, her lips pouting, her forehead knit, she might have been a young and passionate Pallas, brooding tempestuously on the world.

“Miss Vivian is on my side, I see.  I’ll leave her to do the fighting.”

And he left her.

Rhoda’s first movement was to capture Miss Quincey’s hand as it wildly reconnoitred for a pocket handkerchief among the pillows.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, “I’ll speak to Miss Cursiter.”

Dr. Cautley, enduring a perfunctory five minutes with Mrs. Moon, could hear Miss Vivian running downstairs and the front door opening and closing upon her.  With a little haste and discretion he managed to overtake her before she had gone very far.  He stopped to give his verdict on her friend.