It appalled her, occasionally, to think of the effect that discovery might have upon all those Real Live People. Not only the girls, but everyone she had ever known—governesses and servants, and relations like Aunt Clo and Cousin Charlie, or her father. Lily did not really feel that even her mother would have understood, although, like most motherless children, she idealized the memory of the dead woman. The only person with whom she knew that her secret could quite well have been shared, would have been Vonnie.
They had always played "pretence games" together, and Vonnie would have outgrown them no more than Lily.
It was partly this consciousness of a guilty secret, of which Lily was unutterably ashamed, that kept her from any intimate friendships at school.
Like many naturally reserved people, she held an ideal of friendship that included the most complete unreserve, and how could such a thing ever be possible to a person who would have to begin by saying:
"I am not like other people. I am not a nearly grown-up girl like you are—I still play pretence games with myself, although I am sixteen. All the pencils in my pencil-box have names, and ages and characters. I like quite baby toys, and I would much rather play by myself with a box of tin soldiers, than go for a school-picnic, or to see a Shakespearean play. I have got a baby-doll and I talk to her and take her to bed every night, and I always mean to go on, as long as I live."
Whenever Lily reached this climax, in her imaginary confession, she always saw the recipient of it, not necessarily as derisive or scornful, but simply, blankly amazed and completely uncomprehending.
There could be nobody who would understand in the whole world.
The whole world, if bounded by the gates of Bridgecrap, certainly justified Lily's instinct in that respect.
She liked most of the girls, although she knew in her heart that there was no real link between herself and any one of them. This she put down to that indefinable eccentricity of hers which differentiated her from the rest of the world. She knew that the girls were conscious of it too, although it would not have occurred to them to put it into words.
The discussion of an abstract question amongst themselves they would have considered to be an affectation, and bad form, although the youthful Briton's trick of freely making crude personal remarks flourished unchallenged.