Though inwardly she felt she had satisfied her ambition, Aldred took the announcement with the greatest outward sang-froid.
"Oh! am I?" she replied nonchalantly. "No, I don't want to see, thanks; I can take your word for it."
"How calm you are! I should have been fearfully excited if it had been: 'No. 1, Mabel Farrington.'"
"What's the use of getting excited? Let us go into the dressing-room, and wash our hands for tea."
Mabel linked her arm affectionately in that of Aldred, and accompanied her down the passage, talking as she went.
"I knew you would come out top, dearest!" she said. "You were certain to, as soon as you had grown used to the work here. It's always difficult for a new girl, when she has been accustomed to a different teacher; but I think you have fallen into Birkwood ways marvellously quickly. Don't you feel proud?"
"Not particularly."
"Well, I do, for you! To think of being twenty marks ahead of Ursula! It's a tremendous score! How do you manage to be so clever?"
"I'm not clever. It's sheer good luck, I expect."
"No, it's not good luck," said Mabel, putting back Aldred's dark curls with a caressing hand. "It's something far more, only you're too modest to acknowledge it. You're behaving just as you did at Seaforth. Oh, I've heard about that episode! We all know of it, though you may think it was done by stealth."