‘I have brought your friend to make a visit to you while I go on to Tideshole. She tells me that you will be kind enough to see her on her way home, if you are going back at the same time.’
‘I shall be delighted,’ said Kalliope, with eyes as well as tongue, and no sooner were she and Gillian alone together than she joyfully exclaimed—
‘Then Miss Mohun knows! You have told her.
‘No—’
‘Oh!’ and there were volumes in the intonation. ‘I was alarmed when she came in, and then so glad if it was all over. Dear Miss Merrifield—’
‘Call me Gillian; I have told you to do so before! Phyllis is Miss Merrifield, and I won’t be so before my time,’ said Gillian, interrupting in a tone more cross than affectionate.
‘I was going to say,’ pursued Kalliope, ‘that the shock her entrance gave to me proved all the more that we cannot be treating her properly.
‘Never mind that! I did not come about that. She is quite taken with you, Kally, and wants you more than ever to be a Friendly Girl, because she thinks it would be so good for the others who are under you.’
‘They have told me something about it,’ said Kalliope thoughtfully.
‘She fancied’ added Gillian, ‘that perhaps she did not make you understand the rights of it, not knowing that you were different from the others.’