“It is getting better, thank you.” Dorothy spoke cheerfully, and then she burst out hurriedly, “I wanted to say to you that there is no need for you to be afraid of me, or—or of what I may say.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Rhoda, with such offence in her tone that Dorothy flushed and floundered hopelessly.
“I—I mean just what I say—merely that, and nothing more.” Dorothy looked straight at Rhoda, who flushed, while a look of fear came into her eyes, and she turned away without another word.
After that, things were more strained than before. There was a thinly veiled insolence in Rhoda’s way of treating Dorothy which was fearfully trying to bear. But if they had to come in contact with each other when people were present, then there was a kind of gentle pity in Rhoda’s way of behaving which was more exasperating still.
Dorothy carried her head very high, and she kept her face serene and smiling, but sometimes the strain of it all was about as much as she could stand up under.
One thing helped her to be patient under it all. Her Form position was mounting again. Daisy Goatby and Joan Fletcher had dropped below her, and by the last week of term she had risen above Rhoda again. Great was the jubilation in the No. 1 study on the night when this was discovered. Hazel and Margaret made a ridiculous paper cap, with which they adorned Dorothy, and Jessie Wayne presented her with a huge paper rosette in honour of the event.
“I foresee that you will have us down next term, Dorothy, and then, instead of celebrating, we shall sit in sackcloth and ashes, grousing over our hard lot in being beaten,” laughed Hazel, as she settled the paper hat rakishly askew on Dorothy’s head, and fell back a step to admire the effect.
“There won’t be much danger of that unless we get to work,” answered Dorothy, and then they settled down to steady grind, which lasted until bedtime.
Next morning there was a letter from Tom for Dorothy, which bothered her not a little.
Twice already that term Tom had come to her for money. They each had the same amount of pocket-money, but he did not seem able to make his last. He was always in a state of destitution; he was very often in debt.