There was a titter among the girls. Never had Jeanne looked prouder or handsomer, and Cecile's broad nose distended with anger while her lips were purple. She was larger but she did not dare attack Jeanne, for she knew the nature and the prowess of the tiger cat.
"Let us go home; it gets late," cried one of the girls, turning her companion about.
"O Jeanne," whispered Marie, "how splendid you are! No husband would ever dare beat you."
There were days when Jeanne Angelot thought she should smother in the stuffy school, and the din of the voices went through her head like the rushing noise of a whirlwind. She had stolen out of the room once or twice and had not been called to an account for it. Then one day she saw a boy whipped severely for the same thing. Children were so often beaten in those days, and yet the French habitans were very fond of their offspring.
Jeanne lingered after the children made their clumsy bows and shuffled out.
"Well, what is it?" asked the gruff master.
"Monsieur, you whipped the Dorien boy for running away from school."
"Yes, and I'll do it again. I'll break up the bad practice. Their parents send them to school. They do a mean, dishonest thing and then they lie about it. Don't come sniveling to me about Dorien."
"Monsieur, I was not going to snivel for anybody. You were right to keep your word. If you had promised a holiday and not given it to us we should have felt that you were mean and not of your word. So what is right for one side is right for the other."
He looked over the tops of his glasses, and he made deep wrinkles in his forehead to do it. His eyes were keen and sharp and disconcerted Jeanne a little.
Jeanne drew a long breath and was almost afraid to go on with her confession. Only she should not feel clean inside until she had uttered it.
"There'd be no trouble teaching school if the pupils could see that. There'd be little trouble in the world if the people could see it. It is the good on my side, the bad shoved off on yours. Who taught you such a sense of fairness, of honesty?"
If he could have gotten his grim face into smiling lines he would have done it. As it was it softened.
"Monsieur, I wanted to tell you that I had not been fair. I ran out of school the second day. It was like daggers going through my head and there were stars before my eyes and such a ringing in my ears! So I ran out of doors, clear out to the woods and stayed there up in a high tree where the birds sang to me and the wind made music among the leaves and one could almost look through the blue sky where the white boats went sailing. I thought I would not come to school any more."