In the part of Arthur the child, unconsciously, had seen embodied her own psychological situation. She had enacted the spirit, if not the letter, of her own state of mind, and in the mock death had experienced something of the sensations, the sense of release, of a real one. Left to herself, she might gradually have dreamed and imagined and acted herself out of her troubles, have drifted back to real life again, cured and sane. But Alwynne, with her suggestion of good cheer, had destroyed the skin of make-believe that was forming healingly upon the child's sore heart. Louise awoke, with a pang of hope, to her real situation.
"I am sure Miss Hartill must have been awfully pleased." ... So pleased that, who knew, she might yet forgive the crime of the examination? If it might be.... "What might be must be," cried the child within her.
There came a crash of clapping; the rehearsal was over at last, and in a few moments flocks of girls, chattering and excited, came trouping past Louise on their way to tea.
She did not follow them. She was suddenly aware of boy's clothes. She must change them.... She could not find Miss Hartill till she was tidy, and she had determined to speak with her.
Miss Durand had said.... She would do as Arthur did to Hubert—she would besiege Miss Hartill, force her to be kind, till she could say, "Oh, now you look Miss Hartill! all this while you were disguised." She shivered at the idea of undergoing once more the emotional experience of the scene—but the vision of Miss Hartill transfigured drew her as a magnet pulls a needle.
She went towards the stairs.
The big music-room at the top of the house had been temporarily converted into a dressing-room, and she thought she would go quickly and change, while it was still quiet and spacious. But as she pushed open the swinging doors that divided staircase from passage, she saw Clare coming down the long corridor. There was no one else in sight. Again wild, unreasoning hopes flooded her. She would seize the opportunity ... she would speak to Miss Hartill there and then.... She would ask her why she was always angry.... Perhaps she would be kind? "I am sure Miss Hartill must have been awfully pleased...." She must have speech with her at once—at once....
She waited, holding open the door, her heart beating violently, her face steeled to composure.
Clare, passing with a nod, found her way barred by a white-faced scrap of humanity, whose courage, obviously and pitifully, was desperation. But Clare could be very blind when she did not choose to see.
"Miss Hartill, may I speak to you?"