the work of a boy or girl in the school. It could be nothing other than the Art Master’s own model upon which he had been working for weeks past, ready to make a plaster cast from it, so that it was not, in one sense, finished work. Nevertheless, it was, even to her untutored sense, a particularly fine model; and it was something which she could do nothing to replace. Distressed beyond measure, she switched off the lights, and, wandering out again, found a chair at the side of the stage but below the stage level, and there she sat, waiting for her cue, a somewhat curious sight with her neat eyeglasses adorning the fearful countenance of “Katisha.”
The particular place she had chosen was in a rather dark corner. She sat there for a long time listening to the rehearsal, which seemed to be going rather better, she thought, and she was almost forgetting her worries in absorbing herself in the now familiar lines and songs, when her attention was distracted by the sound of voices close at hand. The first was Miss Cliffordson’s voice. The second she could not place for a moment, and then she realized that it could belong only to Hurstwood, the youthful “Nanki-Poo.”
“My dear boy,” Miss Cliffordson was saying in tones low enough not to disturb what was being done on the stage, “I’m old enough to be—well, your aunt, anyway! Do be sensible.”
“I can’t, any more,” responded the boy.
“Well, for goodness’ sake, come in here, then, and talk,” said Miss Cliffordson, half annoyed and half tenderly.
There was the sound of a class-room door being opened, and they went into the Art Room from which Miss Ferris had lately emerged. She rose abruptly, and walked in after them. They had not closed the door, and the embroidered Japanese slippers she was wearing happened to be soundless as she walked. Her purpose, subconscious, not expressed even to herself, was to prevent anybody seeing the damage she had done to Mr. Smith’s model. As she got to the door, however, she paused, for Miss Cliffordson’s voice, low and urgent, was saying:
“Harry, you idiot, you
There was a scuffling noise, and Hurstwood’s voice, muffled and with a note of agony, said, almost on a sob:
“I must! I must! I can’t stick it any longer!”
“No!” said Miss Cliffordson, breathlessly this time. “You’re not to be…”
The sentence trailed off. There was the sound of kisses and heavy breathing, and then Miss Cliffordson said in a frightened tone: “My dear, you can’t go on like this! It isn’t—it isn’t right!”
Then the boy’s voice, full of pain, replied: “It is! It is! Don’t you—can’t you understand———”
At this point, and not entirely of her own volition, for her finger had been on the switch for some moments and the pressure she suddenly exerted was nervous rather than wilful, Miss Ferris turned on the light. There was an exclamation. A heap of brilliant colouring in the middle of the space in front of the teacher’s desk sorted itself into a youth and a girl, both in Japanese costume. Miss Cliffordson said with nervous hilarity:
“What ho! Here’s your ‘Katisha’ come for you, my lad!”
Miss Ferris managed to say:
“I thought I had left my fan in here just now. Were you rehearsing your bit?”
Hurstwood, with the usual defencelessness of youth, stood tongue-tied. Miss Cliffordson laughed, and then the two of them followed Miss Ferris into the wings, and no more was said. Hurstwood determinedly escorted Miss Cliffordson to her home when the rehearsal was over. He was so silent and gloomy that she rallied him, trying to appear more at ease with him than she actually was.
She was a shallow but not a cruel or heartless girl, and, so far as it was in her nature to be sorry for anyone, she was sorry for this boy. She told herself that it was calflove, that he would get over it, that he would soon be leaving and would find new friends, new interests, and that the evening’s episode, together with everything which it stood for and illuminated, would soon be forgotten by the boy; but in spite of these assurances she was conscious of having behaved very badly. She had known for nearly two years what this poor lad had been thinking and feeling, and at first she had encouraged him. Then, when, during the previous term, the thing looked like getting out of hand and becoming uncomfortable instead of pretty, she had tried to ignore him. This did not prove to be a solution. It merely put him off his work instead of causing him to work better (the first effect she had had on him), and it did nothing to quench his love.
She was in an exceedingly difficult and uncomfortable position, and was well aware of the fact. It was lucky, she reflected, that it was only the good-natured, obtuse and self-contained Miss Ferris who had found them. She went hot and cold by turns as she thought of all the other members of the staff, both male and female, who might just as easily have walked into the Art Room that evening.
Hurstwood said suddenly, as they walked down the deserted street towards Miss Cliffordson’s home:
“Do you think she’ll split?”
Startled, she replied:
“Whom do you mean?”
“Ferris.”
“Of course not.”
“She split to the old man to-day about a kid in the Upper Third.”
“Oh, but that was a staff row.”
“Well, wouldn’t
Miss Cliffordson laughed, but not very convincingly. Her uncle, she knew, was not a narrow-minded man, but she felt uncertain as to his reaction if he were informed by another member of the staff that one of the Sixth Form boys had kissed her. “The boy,” she imagined her uncle saying, “must have received some sort of encouragement, my dear Gretta, must he not?”
She could not construct any reply which would at once fit the facts as reported by Miss Ferris, who, she reminded herself, was unfashionably conscientious and suffered from an over-developed sense of duty, exonerate Hurstwood— she had genuinely sporting qualities, and hated the idea of getting the boy into trouble—and cover
