“Yes, but I mean if you had been about.”
“I know,” smiled Eve confidently. “You mean if I were you. Go on. I know. Explain, old thing.”
“Well, I mean of course if you are a governess in a school you can’t be jolly and charming. You can’t be idiotic or anything.... I did think about it. Don’t tell anybody. But I thought for a little while I might go into a family—one of the girls’ families—the German girls, and begin having a German manner. Two of the girls asked me. One of them was ill and went away—that Pomeranian one I told you about. Well, then, I didn’t tell you about that little one and her sister—they asked me to go to them for the holidays. The youngest said—it was so absurd—‘you shall marry my bruzzer—he is mairchant—very welty’—absurd.”
“Not absurd—you probably would have, away from that school.”
“D’you think so?”
“Yes, you would have been a regular German, fat and jolly and laughing.”
“I know. My dear I thought about it. You may imagine. I wondered if I ought.”
“Why didn’t you try?”
Why not? Why was she not going to try? Eve would, she was sure in her place....
Why not grimace and be very “bright” and “animated” until the end of the term and then go and stay with the Bergmanns for two months and be as charming as she could?... Her heart sank.... She imagined a house, everyone kind and blond and smiling. Emma’s big tall brother smiling and joking and liking her. She would laugh and pretend and flirt like the Pooles and make up to him—and it would be lovely for a little while. Then she would offend someone. She would offend everyone but Emma—and get tired and cross and lose her temper. Stare at them all as they said the things everybody said, the things she hated; and she would sit glowering, and suddenly refuse to allow the women to be familiar with her.... She tried to see the brother more clearly. She looked at the screen. The Bergmanns’ house would be full of German furniture.... At the end of a week every bit of it would reproach her.