‘And indeed,’ began Kalliope, ‘since your aunt has been so very kind about poor little Maura—’
‘Oh, please don’t talk to me! There’s such a lot to do, and I have no time. Wait till I have done.’
And she nervously began reading out the Greek exercise, so as effectually to stop Kalliope’s mouth. Moreover, either her own uneasy mind, or the difficulty of the Greek, brought her into a dilemma. She saw that Alexis’s phrase was wrong, but she did not clearly perceive what the sentence ought to be, and she perplexed herself over it till he came in, whether to her satisfaction or not she could not have told, for she had not wanted to see him on the one hand, though, on the other, it silenced Kalliope.
She tried to clear her perceptions by explanations to him, but he did not seem to give his mind to the grammar half as much as to the cessation of the lessons and her absence.
‘You must do the best you can,’ she said, ‘and I shall find you gone quite beyond me.’
‘I shall never do that, Miss Merrifield.’
‘Nonsense!’ she said, laughing uncomfortably ‘a pretty clergyman you would be if you could not pass a girl. There! good-bye. Make a list of your puzzles and I will do my best with them when I come back.’
‘Thank you,’ and he wrung her hand with an earnestness that gave her a sense of uneasiness.