Lesbia gave the required pledge, and Miss Joyce also promised for her with the earnestness of a godmother registering a baptismal vow.
"You shall have my pot of crocuses as a hostage," she assured him, laughing. "I'll bring them across and leave them with you until Lesbia returns the books."
"I never refuse flowers," answered Mr. Broughten brightly. "Crocuses are special pets of mine too. I hope they're purple ones? Good! Then we're making a very profitable exchange on both sides. If there's any more help I can give you another time, come and ask me."
Horribly late, but with her mind an absolute storehouse of new and artistic ideas, Lesbia hurried home to 28 Park Road. It was nearly seven when she arrived, and she had not touched her practising or her preparation. For once Mrs. Patterson was really angry. She took Lesbia into the drawing-room alone, and began to talk in the strained voice of one who is putting a curb on her strong indignation.
"You don't seem to realize things," she said, during the course of what was, after all, a scolding which Lesbia had brought on her own head. "Here you are nearly sixteen and a half, and as childish as if you were six. If you won't work and don't pass your exams what's going to happen to you? I suppose you know you'll have to earn your own living? You can't be anything of a teacher unless you get some proper qualifications."
"Must I be a teacher?" asked Lesbia desperately. "Couldn't I take up Art instead?"
"Art!" (Mrs. Patterson's voice expressed a volume of scorn.) "Art! That's the last thing in the world to depend upon. It's a most precarious livelihood nowadays. Why it would probably be years before you could sell a picture. Now don't be silly, Lesbia. Miss Tatham has been very kind in helping you, and you owe it to her and to the school to work your hardest. What's the use of beginning to cry? Do wipe your eyes and be sensible."
But being sensible was just the last thing possible to Lesbia. She rushed upstairs to her bedroom and went on crying. She did not go down when the gong sounded, and Kitty, coming in search of her presently, found her with one shoe on and one off, and her dress still unchanged. She answered all her cousin's arguments by torrents of tears, till Kitty lost patience and went away.
"Leave her to herself," decided Mrs. Patterson, sending up Lesbia's supper, and her home lesson books, upon a tray; "it's half temper, and she's better alone."
Joan looked rather sympathetically in the direction of the stairs—she had a warm corner for Lesbia—but the two sisters were starting for a concert and could not wait to comfort anybody. They did not take the matter seriously. To Lesbia it was desperate trouble. From the flutter of joy of the inspiring afternoon she had dropped into a chaos of despair. For the first time she began to look ahead, and she seemed to see her life stretching an endless bleak vista of perpetual teaching.