"We can play the piano here," said Lorraine, "because there isn't any baby to wake up and cry."
"If there were, you'd have to reckon with me, for I shouldn't let it be disturbed when I'd successfully hushed it to sleep. I haven't forgotten my own struggles with you and Richard. You were the naughtiest babies of the whole tribe."
After this rather unconventional introduction, Lorraine's attraction to the Castletons ripened fast into intimate friendship. They were such an unusual family, so clever and interesting, yet with Bohemian ways that were different from those of any one she had yet known.
In the case of Morland and Claudia their father's artistic talent had cropped out in the form of music. Claudia cared nothing for painting, but was just beginning to discover that she had a voice. Morland, hopeless as far as school work was concerned, had learned to play the piano almost by instinct. He was a handsome, careless, good-tempered boy, decidedly weak in character, who drifted aimlessly along without even an ambition in life. He was seventeen and a half, and for nearly a year had been lounging about at home, doing nothing in particular. Spasmodically his father would realize his existence and say: "I must really do something with Morland." Then he would get absorbed in a fresh picture, and his good intentions on his son's behalf would fade to vanishing point. In another six months the lad would be liable for military service, so until the war should be over it seemed scarcely worth while to start him in any special career. Doing nothing, however, is a bad training, and even Mr. Castleton's artistic friends—not prone as a rule to proffer good advice—tendered the occasional comment that Morland was "running to seed". Morland himself was perfectly happy if he was left alone and allowed to sit and improvise at the piano; he never troubled his head about his future career, and was as unconcerned as the ravens regarding the sources of food and raiment.
He played Lorraine's accompaniments easily at sight, with a delicacy of touch and an artistic rendering such as Rosemary had never put into them. It inspired Lorraine, and yet half humiliated her; she was a painstaking but not a very clever student of the violin; no touch of genius ever flowed from her fingers. To listen to Morland was to gain a glimpse of a new musical world in which he flew on wings and she stumbled on crutches. She sighed as she threw down her violin, for she had all the ambition that he unfortunately lacked.
CHAPTER V
A Question of Discipline
At school Claudia rapidly became one of Lorraine's best allies. She made no undue fuss, but she could always be depended upon for support. Being a new girl, she was more ready to take up new ways than were the other monitresses, who remembered the régime of Lily Anderson, and were inclined to judge everything by former standards. The chief bone of contention was the bar between seniors and juniors. Hitherto it had not been etiquette for the upper and lower school to mix more than was absolutely necessary; the elder girls had held themselves aloof, and even in the too numerous guilds and societies had insisted upon senior and junior branches.
Having broken the ice with the social gathering, at which every one alike showed exhibits, Lorraine began to run all her organizations on more popular lines. She persuaded a few volunteers to superintend the little girls' games; she set aside two special pages for their efforts in the manuscript magazine, and allowed them to vote for their own captain in their basket-ball club. These fresh departures did not pass without opposition. Some of her colleagues hinted broadly that Lorraine was making a bid for popularity.
"Monitresses should be loyal to the Sixth!" sniffed Vivien. "We don't want to mix with Dick, Tom and Harry!"