And Mrs. Moon still wondered.  “I never saw anything like the indelicacy of that young man,” said she.  “You’re running up a pretty long bill, I can tell you.”

Oh, yes, a long, long bill; for we pay heavily for our pleasures in this sad world, Juliana!

CHAPTER VI

Spring Fashions

Winter had come and gone, and spring found Miss Quincey back again at St. Sidwell’s, the place of illumination; a place that knew rather less of her than it had known before.  After five-and-twenty years of constant attendance she had only to be away three months to be forgotten.  The new staff was not greatly concerned with Miss Quincey; it was always busy.  As for the girls, they were wholly given over to the new worship of Rhoda Vivian; impossible to rouse them to the faintest interest in Miss Quincey.

Her place had been kept for her by Rhoda.  Rhoda had put out the strong young arm that she was so proud of, and held back for a little while Miss Quincey’s fate; and now at all costs she was determined to stand between her and the truth.  So Miss Quincey never knew that it was Rhoda who was responsible for the delicate attentions she had received during her illness; Rhoda who had bought and sent off the presents from St. Sidwell’s; Rhoda who had conceived that pretty little idea of flowers “with love”; and Rhoda who had inspired the affectionate messages of the staff. (The Classical Mistress had to draw most extravagantly on her popularity in order to work that fraud.) Rhoda had taken her place, and it was not in Rhoda’s power to give it back to her.  But Miss Quincey never saw it; for a subtler web than that of Rhoda’s spinning was woven about her eyes.

Possibly in some impressive and inapparent way her unhappy little favourite Laura Lazarus may have been glad to see her back again, though the two queer creatures exchanged no greeting more intimate than an embarrassed smile.  In this rapidly-advancing world the Mad Hatter alone remained where Miss Quincey had left her.  She explained at some length how the figures twisted themselves round in her head and would never stay the same for a minute together.  Miss Quincey listened patiently to this explanation; she was more indulgent, less persistent than before.

Under that veil of illusion she herself had become communicative.  She went up and down between the classes and poured out her soul as to an audience all interest, all sympathy.  There was a certain monotony about her conversation since the epoch of her illness.  It was, “Oh yes, I am quite well now, thank you.  Dr. Cautley is so very clever.  Dr. Cautley has taken splendid care of me.  Dr. Cautley has been so very kind and attentive, I think it would be ungrateful of me if I had not got well.  Dr. Cautley—­” Perhaps it was just as well for Miss Quincey that the staff were too busy to attend to her.  The most they noticed was that in the matter of obstruction Miss Quincey was not quite so precipitate as she had been.  She offended less by violent contact and rebound than by drifting absently into the processions and getting mixed up with them.