Evelyn was the only person who did not either hector her, or feel it a duty to clip and prune at her: she accepted Laura for what she was—for herself. Indeed, she even seemed to lay weight on Laura’s bits of opinions, which the girl had grown so chary of offering; and, under the sunshine of this treatment, Laura shot up and flowered like a spring bulb. She began to speak out her thoughts again; she unbosomed herself of dark little secrets; and finally did what she would never have believed possible: sitting one night in her nightgown, on the edge of Evelyn’s bed, she made a full confession of the pickle she had got herself into, over her visit to the Shepherds.
To her astonishment, Evelyn, who was already in bed, laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks. At Laura’s solemn-faced incredulity she said:
“I say, Kiddy, but that was rich. To think a chicken of your size sold them like that. It’s the best joke I’ve heard for an age. Tell us again—from the beginning.”
Nothing loath Laura started in afresh, and in this, the second telling, embroidered the edge of her tale with a few fancy stitches, in a way she had not ventured on for months past; so that Evelyn was more tickled than before.
“No wonder they were mad about being had like that. You little rascal!”
She was equally amused by Laura’s description of the miserable week she had spent, trying to make up her mind to confess.
“You ridiculous sprat! Why didn’t you come to me? We’d have let them down with a good old bump.”
But Laura could not so easily forget the humiliations she had been forced to suffer, and delicately hinted to her friend at M. P.’s moral strictures. With her refreshing laugh, Evelyn brushed these aside as well.
“Tommyrot! Never mind that old jumble-sale of all the virtues. It was jolly clever of a mite like you to bamboozle them as you did—take my word for that.”
This jocose way of treating the matter seemed to put it in an entirely new light; Laura could even smile at it herself. In the days that followed, she learned, indeed, to laugh over it with Evelyn, and to share the latter’s view that she had been superior in wit to those she had befooled. This meant a great and healthy gain in self-assurance for Laura. It also led to her laying more and more weight on what her friend said. For it was not as if Evelyn had a low moral standard; far from that: she was honest and straightforward, too proud, or, it might be, too lazy to tell a lie herself—with all the complications lying involved—and Laura never heard her say a harder thing of anyone than what she had just said about Mary Pidwall.
The two talked late into every night after this, Laura perched, monkey-fashion, on the side of her friend’s bed. Evelyn had all the accumulated wisdom of eighteen, and was able to clear her young companion up on many points about which Laura had so far been in the dark. But when, in time, she came to relate the mortifications she had suffered—and was still called on to suffer—at the hands of the other sex, Evelyn pooh-poohed the subject.
“Time enough in a couple of years for that. Don’t bother your head about it in the meantime.”
“I don’t now—not a bit. I only wanted to know why. Sometimes, Evvy, do you know, they liked to talk to quite little kids of seven and eight better than me.”
“Perhaps you talked too much yourself—and about yourself?”
“I don’t think I did. And if you don’t talk something, they yawn and go away.”
“You’ve got to let them do the lion’s share, child. Just you sit still, and listen, and pretend you like it—even though you’re bored to extinction.”
“And they never need to pretend anything, I suppose? No, I think they’re horrid. You don’t like them either, Evvy, do you? … any more than I do?”
Evelyn laughed.
“Say what you think they are,” persisted Laura and waggled the other’s arm, to make her speak.
“Mostly fools,” said Evelyn, and laughed again—laughed in all the conscious power of lovely eighteen.
Overjoyed at this oneness of mind, Laura threw her arms round her friend’s neck and kissed her. “You dear!” she said.
And yet, a short time afterwards, it was on this very head that she had to bear the shock of a rude awakening.
Evelyn’s people came to Melbourne that year from the Riverina. Evelyn was allowed considerable freedom, and one night, by special permit, Laura also accepted an invitation to dinner and the theatre. The two girls drove to a hotel, where they found Evelyn’s mother, elegant but a little stern, and a young lady-friend. Only the four of them were present at dinner, and the meal passed off smoothly; though the strangeness of dining in a big hotel had the effect of tying Laura’s tongue. Another thing that abashed her was the dress of the young lady, who sat opposite. This person—she must have been about the ripe age of twenty-five—was nipped into a tight little pink satin bodice, which, at the back, exposed the whole of two very bony shoulder-blades. But it was the front of the dress that Laura faced; and, having imbibed strict views of propriety from Mother, she wriggled on her chair whenever she raised her eyes.
They drove to the theatre—though it was only a few doors off. The seats were in the dress circle. The ladies sat in the front row, the girls, who were in high frocks, behind.
Evelyn made a face of laughing discontent. “It’s so ridiculous the mater won’t let me dress.”
These words gave Laura a kind of stab. “Oh Evvy,
