“I hate having all one’s pleasure stopped,” said Kattern.
“Don’t be a cross cat,” returned Tory. “If we go for to quarrel, as girls in goody story-books do, when the author wants them to be naughty for a change, we shall get no comfort in life. Goody! What a story I could write! I know! I’ll be a sensational, realistic author, and make a fortune. Experience is better for that than education. Come along, Katty, let us take farewell of our childish haunts. They weren’t our childish haunts. But no matter—”
She dragged Kattern up from her chair, and out of the room, as she spoke; while Amethyst laughed.
“I believe there’s something staunch about Tory, at bottom,” she said. “I’d rather trust her than Kat, among shady people.”
Una moved a little, and watched Amethyst for a few moments in silence.
“Amethyst,” she said, suddenly, “setting aside being married, what would you like best to do with your life?”
“I think I should like to enlist for a soldier,” said Amethyst with a laugh.
“But really?”
“Really. Oh, I could keep school, I always liked teaching. When I’m twenty-one, I shall think about it. We shall none of us ever have enough money to be comfortable, if we don’t marry. What can become of us? I think, perhaps, I shall write to Miss Halliday and consult her, though I would rather teach in a High School than go back to Saint Etheldred’s. I think there would be more life in it. I think one’s title might be swallowed, and, as for my beauty reputation, one would be the safest of young women, for there never would be anybody one would care to look twice at.”
“I suppose they wouldn’t like it, if rows of young men went to church to look at you?”