Virginia Villa, in which she and her mother would now live, was within a quarter of an hour of Magda's home. It was clearly for Magda to take the next step.
[CHAPTER XII]
AN OPPORTUNITY LOST
MAGDA was unhappy, and distinctly cross.
She did not wish to be cross, and probably she would not have called herself so. But her world seemed all awry, and her temper suffered under the strain. Self-control was not one of Magda's prime virtues, as by this time you will have found out. It is quite possible for a person to feel desperately cross, and yet so to hold down the feeling that no one can guess its existence. But if Magda were cross, all around knew it.
Merryl certainly did. She came in, dragging her steps in an unwonted fashion, looking pale and heavy-eyed. Magda was alone, seated at a side-table of the school-room, with an ostentatious array of grammars and dictionaries. Since Patricia's departure for the Continent she had, in self-defence, taken violently to French and German.
"Please, Magda—"
"Oh, don't bother. I'm busy."
"Mother wants a note taken to Mrs. Hodgson."
"Well, I suppose you can take it." Merryl was the acknowledged family messenger.