"I'm not going to bring her flowers every morning, and offer her walnut creams in the interval," she thought. "It seems like bribery, and I should think much better of her if she wouldn't accept them. Miss Hardy never did."
Miss Hardy, the mistress of the Lower Fourth, had been strict but scrupulously just; she might be sometimes disliked by her pupils, but she was always respected. Miss Pitman was a totally different type of teacher: she was younger, better looking, dressed more prettily, and cared very much more for the social side of life. She lacked power to enforce good discipline, and tried to supply her deficiency by making a bid for popularity among her girls. She dearly loved the little attentions they paid her: she liked to pin a rose on her dress, or carry home a bunch of hothouse flowers; she found tickets for concerts or lectures most acceptable; and invitations—provided they were to nice houses—were not despised. Probably she had not the least idea that she was allowing her predilection for some of her pupils to bias her judgment of their capacities in class, but in the few weeks that she had taught the Upper Fourth she had already gained a reputation for favouritism.
"She can be so particularly mean," said Dorothy, continuing the recital of her grievances to Alison in the train. "She deliberately helped Blanche out with one question yesterday, and she wouldn't give me even the least hint."
"I don't like her myself," commented Alison, "though she isn't as hard on me as she is on you. But it's perfectly easy to see what's the matter with Miss Pitman—she's ambitious to climb. She wouldn't accept the Parkers' invitation (they only live in a semi-detached villa), and she's been twice to the Lawsons', who send her home in a motor. Well, she won't be asked to our house."
"Nor to ours, though I don't suppose she'd want to come. All the same, it's disgusting, and I've a very poor opinion of her."
That morning Miss Pitman took her classes without her ordinary adornment in the way of a button-hole. Hope Lawson was absent, and the delicate Maréchal Niel or dainty spray of carnations that usually lay on her desk at nine o'clock was absent also. Perhaps she missed it, for she was both impatient and snappy in her manner during the lessons, waxed sarcastic when Noëlle Kennedy demanded an explanation of a rather obvious point, and made no allowance for slips. She dictated the History notes so quickly that it was very difficult to follow her, and woe to Dorothy, who was rash enough to ask her to repeat a sentence!
"Are you deaf, Dorothy Greenfield? Sit up and don't poke. I can't allow you to stoop over your desk in that way. If you're shortsighted, you had better go to an oculist and get fitted with glasses."
Dorothy was apt to poke, and her attitude when writing was most inelegant; but it is difficult to remember physical culture during the agonies of following a quick dictation. She frowned and looked thunderous as she made a jerky effort to sit straight.
"Miss Pitman's crosser than usual," she said to Alison at eleven o'clock. "You'll see, I shall only get 'Moderate' for my literature exercise, however well I do it."
"You mean she'll mark it low on purpose?"