‘You are making it no better,’ said Gillian. ‘The gentlemen I am used to know how to behave properly to any woman or girl. My father would be very sorry that my brother has been thrown into such company.’
And she walked away with her head extremely high, having certainly given Master Stebbing a good lesson. Fergus ran after her. ‘Gill, Gill, you won’t tell.’
‘I don’t think I ever was more shocked in my life,’ returned Gillian.
‘But, Gill, she’s a nasty, stuck-up, conceited little ape, that Maura White, or whatever her ridiculous name is. They pretend her father was an officer, but he was really a bad cousin of old Mr. White’s that ran away; and her mother is not a lady—a great fat disgusting woman, half a nigger; and Mr. White let her brother and sister be in the marble works out of charity, because they have no father, and she hasn’t any business to be at the High School.’
‘White, did you say? Maura White!’ exclaimed Gillian. ‘Captain White dead! Oh, Fergus! it must be Captain White. He was in the dear old Royal Wardours, and papa thought so much of him! To think of your going and treating his daughter in that shocking way!’
‘It was what Stebbing said,’ gruffly answered Fergus.
‘If you let yourself be led by these horrid cads—’
‘He is no such thing! He is the crack bat of Edgar’s—’
‘A boy is a cad who can’t behave himself to a girl because she is poor. I really think the apology to me was the worst part or the matter. He only treats people well when he sees they can take care of themselves.’
‘I’ll tell him about Captain White,’ said Fergus, a little abashed.