“I’d feel—low.” Her eyes had filled and her cheeks were flushed. “I’d be out of place except among the richest and most aristocratic girls.”
“But you don’t like them,” said I gently. I began to feel a sensation of sickness at the heart.
“I hate them!” cried she with passionate energy. “But I want to stay on there and make them be friendly with me. I’ve got too much pride, papa, to run away.”
“Pride,” said I, and my tone must have been sad. “That isn’t pride, dear. You ought to choose your friends by liking. You ought to feel above girls with such cheap ideas.”
“But I’m not above them,” protested she. “And I couldn’t like any girl I’d be ashamed to be seen with, unless she were a sort of servant. Oh, papa, you don’t appreciate how proud I am.”
“Proud of what, dear? Of your parents? Of yourself?”
She hung her head.
“Of what, dear?” I urged.
“It hurts me not to be treated as—as the inside clique of girls in our secret society treat each other.” She was almost crying. “They don’t even call me by my first name any more. They speak to me as Miss Loring—and so politely—exactly as I speak to Miss Parnell or one of the teachers or a servant. Oh, I’m so proud! I’d love to be like Gracie Fortescue. She speaks even to Miss Ryper as I would to Miss Parnell.”
My digestion wasn’t any too good, even in those days. My whole breakfast suddenly went wrong—turned to poison inside me, I suppose. A hot wave of rage against I knew not whom or what rolled up into my brain. I pushed away my plate abruptly. “Run along, child,” I said in a hoarse voice I did not recognize as my own.