"Oh! Oh--well--I'd bought them, you see. As if Mamma would let me pick flowers. Besides, we haven't even got a greenhouse. But I had five shillings at Christmas, and sixpence in the pudding--and sixpence a week pocket-money--and I never have anything to buy. I could well afford it," said Louise, with dignity.
"That's not a lie," said Cynthia, disappointed. "It's barely an--an evasion."
"I didn't mean to--evade. I was only afraid she'd be cross, and yet I couldn't resist getting them. Do you know the feeling, when you ache to give people things? But it was a lie, of course."
"Oh, well! You needn't mind. She tells plenty herself--acts them, at least----"
"There! That's it! That's one of the things! You're always hinting things! Why do you? I won't have it! Of course, I know you're only in fun, but if anybody hears you----"
"I'm not! Oh, but it's no use talking! You think she's a god almighty. What's the use of my telling you that she's a conceited----"
"Oh, she's a right to be. She'd be a peach if I had the dressing of her----"
"She doesn't like American fashions. We don't want her to. We like her as she is."
"And she knows it--you bet your bottom dollar! There's not much she doesn't know. Why, she simply lives for effect! She's the most gorgeous hypocrite----"
"You're a beastly one yourself--you pretend you like her----"
"But I do! I admire her heaps! But I understand her. You don't. She likes to be top dog. She'll do anything for that. She likes to know every woman and child in the school is a bit of putty, to knead into shape. I know! I've met her sort before--only generally it was men they were after. And yet it bores her too----" parenthesised Cynthia shrewdly. "That's why she likes me. I don't care two pins for her tricks. That stings her up a bit. She'll be mighty bored when I go."
Louise listened, angry, yet fascinated. It gave her a curious pleasure to hear Miss Hartill belied. She would hug herself for her own superior discernment. A phrase from a half-digested story often recurred to her: "One doesn't defend one's god! One's god is a defence in himself." But Cynthia was going too far--abandoning innuendo for direct assault. She struck back.
"It's easy to say things. Just saying so doesn't make it so. And if it did, I shouldn't believe it."