Alwynne, walking up and down the room watched her intently as she bent over the Latin grammar. She was wrinkling her brows over a piece of prose that she had already construed at the previous lesson, and with an ease that had astonished Alwynne. She looked bewildered and put her hand to her head again. Her efforts to recall her wandering thoughts were patent and almost physical in their intensity; her small hand hovered, contracting and relaxing, like a baby catching at butterflies.
Alwynne was puzzled by her. The child was sincere: but obviously something momentous had happened, and was still occupying her, to the exclusion of all else. Alwynne wished that she had been less hasty: she felt that she should not have checked her.
She stood a moment beside her, reading what she had written. It was scarcely legible, and made no sense. She put a hand on her shoulder—
"Louise, you are writing nonsense. What is it? Tell me what the matter is?"
Louise laid down her pen, gave her a quick, shy smile, hesitated uncertainly, then, to Alwynne's dismay, collapsed on the low desk in a fit of wild, hysterical crying.
Alwynne always shed the mistress in emergency.
She whipped her arms about the child, and, sitting down, gathered her into her lap. She felt how the little, thin body was wrenched and shaken by the sobs it did not attempt to control, but she said nothing, only held it comfortingly tight.
Slowly the paroxysm subsided, and the words came, jerky, fragmentary, faint. Alwynne bent close to catch them.
Louise was so sorry ... she was all right now ... Miss Durand must think her crazy. No—no—nothing wrong ... it was the other way round ... she was so happy that it frightened her ... she was madly happy ... she had been in heaven all day ... it was too wonderful to tell any one about ... even Miss Durand.... Miss Hartill—no one could ever know what Miss Hartill was.... She had been so good to her—so wonderful.... She had made Louise so happy that she was frightened ... she couldn't believe it was possible to be so madly happy.... That was all.... Yes, it had made her cry—the pure happiness.... Wasn't it silly? Only she was so dreadfully tired.... It had hurt her head trying to do the Latin—because she was so tired.... Yes, she had had headaches lately.... But she didn't care—it was worth it, to please Miss Hartill.... It was queer that being so happy should make her want to cry; it was comical, wasn't it?
She began to laugh as she spoke, with tears brimming over her lashes, and for a few moments was inclined to be hysterical again.