Reproachfully Dorothy McClain shook her head at this moment.
Tory had a quick temper. She rarely made unfortunate remarks to other persons, and having beautiful manners under most circumstances, perhaps possessed the right to resent the lack of them in other people.
At this moment she flushed and bit her lips, but made no reply.
“Don’t you think, after all, that what Tory thinks and declares is her own affair and not yours, Ouida? When did you decide to become the censor of our manners?”
Dorothy’s tone held a slight dryness that was a sharper rebuke than irritation, especially as she so rarely criticized the other girl, in spite of their years of intimacy.
“Dorothy is right, I beg your pardon, Tory,” Louise faltered, a slow color making her heavy features less attractive.
“The truth is I am so grateful for what Miss Frean has offered to do for me that I am too ready to defend her where I have no shadow of justification.”
“What is Memory going to do for you, Louise?” Tory inquired, having fought and conquered her sudden gust of temper. She was learning more self-control of late, when she had been tried in more than one fashion.
“Perhaps I should not have said what I did, but Dorothy and I have grown so intimate over the problem of Kara’s strange attitude that I tell her most things. I suppose Memory is helping you because she thinks you are specially in need of her help. She has a way of passing herself from one person to the other for this reason.”
“I am one of the most awkward persons in the world, Tory, and you are a dear not to be angry! I overheard what was not intended for me and reproached you for it.
“Yes, I do need Miss Frean’s help. I have not had a happy winter, things at home are becoming more and more difficult. It is just such things as my having made that impolite speech to you without intending or realizing how it might affect you, that makes my mother hopeless concerning me. I thought after last summer I would improve.”
“Yes, Ouida, but come to the point. What is Miss Frean to do to help reconcile you to life? Don’t you suppose I appreciate that things have been specially hard for you at home? Perhaps you have not been conscious of the fact, but I have seen less of you this winter than since we were tiny girls. Even old Don noticed the fact and asked me what was the matter,” Dorothy McClain protested.