The next morning at half past nine Pearl was obliged to go to the garage to find Antonia; she was studying the oiling system of the green car. There was nothing unfriendly in her attitude to study; she was perfectly willing to learn, if she could only manage to remember that lesson time had come.
They had lessons on the piazza. Pearl, looking out over the dazzling sea and thinking how pleasant a swim was going to be, had said "How do you spell 'separate,' Antonia?" and Antonia, twining her bare toes about the calf of the other leg, had got as far as "Well, I know it's an e where you expect an a or just the other way," when Williams, bending his head slightly under the curtains, stepped from the dining room upon the piazza.
He looked extremely polished and soaped. He had on white trousers, a gray coat, a blue tie. Antonia, who had never seen him so near before, stared at him, forgetting even to say good morning. He bowed rather formally to the governess, but to Antonia he said, "Where were you last evening? I was watching for you and you didn't appear."
He sat down and drew her toward him with an immaculate brown hand.
Pearl had never seen Antonia embarrassed before. The child kept glancing up at Williams as if fascinated, and glancing quickly away again as if dazzled. Then she turned both knees inward, seemed to dig her toes into the boards and answered in a low, husky voice that they had been out on a picnic.
"I think you might have asked me," said Williams.
He spoke in that tone of false comedy—as if anything you said to a child must be ridiculous—that was peculiarly annoying to Pearl.
Antonia bent her head and muttered that she had not thought he would have enjoyed it.
"I should have enjoyed it," he said, and drew Antonia closer, so that over her head he could give Pearl a hard, significant look.
Pearl rose to her feet. This was a situation she understood thoroughly. She was not going to lose another job on account of a man—a boy rather, younger than herself. In spite of Williams' protests and teasing efforts to retain the child, she swept her up to her bedroom to finish her lessons. But she no longer had Antonia's full attention.