"I see." Clare was interested. She was quite aware that she had used her magnificent voice to impress arbitrarily her opinion of Louise's work upon the class. That Louise, impressionable as she knew her to be, should have yet detected the trick, amused her greatly.
"So you think I didn't understand your essay?"
Louise's shy laugh was very pleasant.
"Oh, Miss Hartill. I'm not so stupid. It's only that I can't have got the—the——"
"Atmosphere!" The girl in spectacles helped her.
"The atmosphere that I meant to; so you put in a different one to help it. And it did. But it wasn't what I meant."
Clare glanced at her inscrutably, and began to score the other essays. She would get at Louise's meaning in her own way. She skimmed a couple, Agatha, be it recorded, receiving the coveted initials, before she spoke again.
"Didn't I tell you to learn Childe Roland, too? Ah, I thought so. Begin, Marion, while I finish these. Two verses."
Her pen scratched on, as Marion's expressionless voice rose, fell and finished. Agatha continued, jarringly dramatic. Two more followed her. Then Clare put down her pen.
"'For mark!'..."