Queenie Torrance
School days in Belgium went on, through the steamy, rain-sodden days of spring to the end of term and the grandes vacances looked forward to with such frantic eagerness even by the children who liked the convent best. Alex was again bitterly conscious of an utter want of conformity setting her apart from her fellow-creatures.
The misery of parting for eight weeks from Queenie Torrance overwhelmed her. Casually, Queenie said:
"I may not come back, next term. I shall be seventeen by then, and I don't see why I should be at school any longer if I can get round father."
"What would you do?"
"Why, come out, of course," said Queenie. "I am quite old enough, and every one says I look older than I am."
She moved her head about slightly so as to get sidelong views of her own reflection in the big window-pane. There were no looking-glasses at the convent.
It was true that, in spite of a skin smooth and unlined as a baby's and the childish, semicircular comb that gathered back the short flaxen ringlets from her rounded, innocent brow, Queenie's slender, but very well-developed figure and the unvarying opaque pallor of her complexion, made her look infinitely nearer maturity than the slim, long-legged American girls, or over-plump, giggling French and Belgian ones. Alex gazed at her with mute, exaggerated despair on her face.
"Your parents will permit that you make your début at once, yes?" queried Marthe Poupard, as one resigned to the incredible folly and weakness of British and American parents.
"I can manage my father," said Queenie gently, and with the perfect conviction of experience in her voice.