Subconsciously she was always rather relieved, on that account, when the preliminaries were done with, and the lesson could be given, according to the rules, in the English tongue.
"Simone! Begin, please."
Sister Alexandra, seated at the desk, held the book open in front of her, and her eyes rested upon the page, but her mind took in neither the meaning of the printed words nor the sense conveyed by Simone's droning, inexpressive voice.
She wondered whether some one would come to take her place at the desk and tell her that Mother Gertrude was waiting for her downstairs.
A sudden, stealthy opening of the class-room door made her look up with a flash of hope, but it was only a little girl late for her lesson and sidling in, hoping to escape notice.
Alex did not even trouble to give her the accustomed bad mark.
It would have meant opening her desk, and pulling out the mistress's note-book, and looking for a pencil, and she felt too tired. In her earlier days at the convent she would have felt ashamed at the thought of yielding to such slothful unconcern, and would have magnified the omission into a sin, to be confessed with shame to Mother Gertrude.
Now, she was too tired to care, and besides, she never saw Mother Gertrude. Even the poor little half-hour that had been held out to her was not to be hers, after all. She brooded in resentment over the thought.
A titter going round the room roused her.
"What are you saying, Simone?"