She stood there an enraged and ridiculous figure in her Liberty smock, with her hard, boyish forearms. Her long hair had partly escaped from its ribbon, and the bow sagged down limply, crooked and foolish. All that was heavy in her face sprang into view, the strong line of the jaw, the square, massive brow, the eyebrows, too thick and too wide for beauty. And yet there was a kind of large splendour about her—absurd though she was, she was splendid at that moment—grotesque and splendid, like some primitive thing conceived in a turbulent age of transition.
“Are you going to fight me, you coward?” she demanded, as she stepped round the table and faced her tormentor.
But Roger thrust his hands deep into his pockets: “I don’t fight with girls!” he remarked very grandly. Then he sauntered out of the schoolroom.
Stephen’s own hands fell and hung at her sides; her head drooped, and she stood staring down at the carpet. The whole of her suddenly drooped and looked helpless, as she stood staring down at the carpet.
“How could you!” began Violet, who was plucking up courage. “Little girls don’t have fights—I don’t, I’d be frightened—”
But Stephen cut her short: “I’m going,” she said thickly; “I’m going home to my father.”
She went heavily downstairs and out into the lobby, where she put on her hat and coat; then she made her way round the house to the stables, in search of old Williams and the dogcart.
IV
“You’re home very early, Stephen,” said Anna, but Sir Philip was staring at his daughter’s face.
“What’s the matter?” he inquired, and his voice sounded anxious. “Come here and tell me about it.”
Then Stephen quite suddenly burst into tears, and she wept and she wept as she stood there before them, and she poured out her shame and humiliation, telling all that Roger had said about her mother, telling all that she, Stephen, would have done to defend her, had it not been that Roger would not fight with a girl. She wept and she wept without any restraint, scarcely knowing what she said—at that moment not caring. And Sir Philip listened with his head on his hand, and Anna listened bewildered and dumbfounded. She tried to kiss Stephen, to hold her to her, but Stephen, still sobbing, pushed her away; in this orgy of grief she resented consolation, so that in the end Anna took her to the nursery and delivered her over to the care of Mrs. Bingham, feeling that the child did not want her.
When Anna went quietly back to the study, Sir Philip was still sitting with his head on his hand. She said: “It’s time you realized, Philip, that if you’re Stephen’s father, I’m her mother. So far you’ve managed the child your own way, and I don’t think it’s been successful. You’ve treated Stephen as though she were a boy—perhaps it’s because I’ve not given you a son—” Her voice trembled a little but she went on gravely: “It’s not good for Stephen; I know it’s not good, and at times it frightens me, Philip.”
“No, no!” he said sharply.
But Anna persisted: “Yes, Philip, at times it makes me afraid—I can’t tell you why, but it seems all wrong—it makes me feel—strange with the child.”
He looked at her out of his melancholy eyes: “Can’t you trust me? Won’t you try to trust me, Anna?”
But Anna shook her head: “I don’t understand, why shouldn’t you trust me, Philip?”
And then in his terror for this well-beloved woman, Sir Philip committed the first cowardly action of his life—he who would not have spared himself pain, could not bear to inflict it on Anna. In his infinite pity for Stephen’s mother, he sinned very deeply and gravely against Stephen, by withholding from that mother his own conviction that her child was not as other children.
“There’s nothing for you to understand,” he said firmly, “but I like you to trust me in all things.”
After this they sat talking about the child, Sir Philip very quiet and reassuring.
“I’ve wanted her to have a healthy body,” he explained, “that’s why I’ve let her run more or less wild; but perhaps we’d better have a governess now, as you say; a French governess, my dear, if you’d prefer one—Later on I’ve always meant to engage a bluestocking, some woman who’s been to Oxford. I want Stephen to have the finest education that care and money can give her.”
But once again Anna began to protest. “What’s the good of it all for a girl?” she argued. “Did you love me any less because I couldn’t do mathematics? Do you love me less now because I count on my fingers?”
He kissed her. “That’s different, you’re you,” he said, smiling, but a look that she knew well had come into his eyes, a cold, resolute expression, which meant that all persuasion was likely to be unavailing.
Presently they went upstairs to the nursery, and Sir Philip shaded the candle with his hand, while they stood together gazing down at Stephen—the child was heavily asleep.
“Look, Philip,” whispered Anna, pitiful and shaken, “look, Philip—she’s got two big tears on her cheek!”
He nodded, slipping his arm around Anna: “Come away,” he muttered, “we may wake her.”
VI
I
Mrs. Bingham departed unmourned and unmourning, and in her stead reigned Mademoiselle Duphot, a youthful French governess with a long, pleasant face that reminded Stephen of a horse. This equine resemblance was fortunate in one way—Stephen took to Mademoiselle Duphot at once—but it did not make for respectful obedience. On the contrary, Stephen felt very familiar, kindly familiar and quite at her ease; she petted Mademoiselle Duphot. Mademoiselle Duphot was lonely and homesick, and it must be admitted that she liked being petted. Stephen would rush off to get her a cushion, or a footstool or her glass of milk at eleven.
“Comme elle est gentille, cette drôle de petite fille, elle a
