Though she came as a stranger to Porthkeverne, Madame Bertier very soon found friends. Her attractive personality and her musical talent gained her the entrée into the artistic and literary circles of the town. Two principal figure-painters asked her to sit for her portrait, and her violin was much in demand for concerts at the Arts Club. Like most of the Bohemian residents of the place, she found her way to the studio at Windy Howe, and a pastel drawing of her profile soon stood on Mr. Castleton's easel. She did not win universal favour, however, at the house on the hill. Claudia, walking from school one day with Lorraine, exploded upon the subject.
"I can't bear the woman! I don't know what Vivien and the others see in her. I call it very flashy to wear all that jewellery at school. She's always up at our house, and Morland's fearfully taken with her. They play duets by the hour together. Father's going to paint her as 'The Angel of Victory' in that huge cartoon he's designing for the Chagstead Town Hall. I don't think she's a scrap like an angel! She pats Lilith and Constable on the head, just for show, but she looks terrified if they come near her smart frocks. Violet detests her. It's the one thing Violet and I agree about. We've been squabbling over everything else lately. It's a weary world!"
"Madame's fascinating enough on the surface," agreed Lorraine thoughtfully, "but she's not the kind of woman I admire. Somehow I don't quite trust her. Do you believe in first impressions? So do I. Well, my first feeling about her was distinctly non-attractive. We ran away from each other mentally, like two pieces of magnetized steel. She's very sweet to me at my music lessons; but I'm sure it's all put on, and she doesn't care an atom. It's an entirely different thing from my Saturday lessons."
One great reason why Lorraine had not, with the rest of the school, fallen under the spell of the fascinating Russian lady, was the intense affection she had formed for her art teacher. She could not worship at both shrines, and she felt strongly that Margaret Lindsay was infinitely more worthy of admiration. The studio down by the harbour was still her artistic Mecca. She had a carte blanche invitation to go whenever she liked. She turned in there one Friday afternoon on her way from school.
"Carina," she said, flopping into a basket-chair by the fireside, "I'm just fed up to-day!"
The friendship, which had begun conventionally with the orthodox "Miss Lindsay", now expressed itself by "Margaret", "Peggy", or such pet terms as "Carina" and "Love-Angel".
"What's the matter?" asked her friend, squeezing a little extra flake-white on to her palette, and putting the cap on the tube again. "It isn't often you're fed up with life!"
"Everything's gone wrong!" declared Lorraine tragically. "My head aches, and I didn't know my literature, and Miss Janet glared at me, and maths. were a failure this morning too, and I felt scratchy and squabbled with everybody. I'm afraid I was rather hard on some of those kids, though they were the limit! Carina, when you were at school, did you sometimes have a fling out all round, or were you always good?"
"I confess," said Carina humorously, "that, when I trod the slippery paths of youth, I often flopped flat, and made an exhibition of myself. I don't think I was a nice child at all!"
"I call you a saint now! I wonder what most saints were like when they were young."