“The class will come to order!” Monsieur was looking straight at the back row; he had very keen eyes behind his gold-rimmed spectacles.
That was a truly awful half-hour for more than one member of the class.
Monsieur did not in the least understand “the youth American,” and had even less sympathy with what he considered his present pupils’ inexcusable lack of preparation.
Extremely polite in voice and manner, but possessing to a marked degree the gift of sarcasm, his methods were so dissimilar from those of their beloved Mademoiselle—who had the knack of extracting answers from the most unpromising pupil—that the majority of the class soon gave up trying to make even a creditable showing; deciding, apparently, that endurance—and dumb endurance at that—was the only course left them.
His polite request that they should not all endeavor to reply at once, they obeyed to the letter.
“He’s only a ‘sub,’ anyhow,” Kitty reminded Blue Bonnet.
Blue Bonnet’s face was crimson; he was too hateful—she shouldn’t try to answer another single question.
Monsieur was on his feet by now, walking back and forth before the class, gesticulating nervously, shrugging impatiently; was it possible that he had made the mistake—that they were not the class in French after all? Or was it that they took not the interest in his language? He was there to instruct, to hear the recitations, to correct the pronunciation, mais—
All of which, poured out in rapid French, did not help matters any.
“We go now to make the attempt further,” he opened the book again. “Mademoiselle,” he fixed his glance on Hester, “will kindly translate.”