Schoolgirl friendships were not the fashion at Bridgecrap, and were cried down as "sloppy" by the girls themselves.
But it was de rigeur to have an infatuation for one or other of the teachers, with the exception of Mademoiselle who, being a "beastly foreigner," naturally "didn't count."
The majority of these enthusiasms might almost be described as being artificially manufactured to meet the requirements of that great law that enforced conformation to type. The mildest demonstrations only were indulged in.
"Isn't she swe-eet—isn't she ducky?"
Such was the prescribed formula when Lily was at Bridgecrap, and once it had been ecstatically uttered, the speaker was recognized as being "keen" on Miss So-and-So, and there the matter remained stationary.
There were one or two exceptions to this comparatively healthy state of affairs, as is inevitable in any community living under similar conditions of unnatural segregation. Lily, without knowing why, hated the headlong adorations that occasionally overtook a girl for one of the mistresses, and that almost always resulted in some unspecified crisis, when the adorer was sent for by Miss Melody, and severely, though quite inexplicitly, cautioned against "foolishness."
Sometimes, Lily thought, the mistress was cautioned too, for very often her manner to her devotee would change abruptly, and become very cold and self-conscious.
The affair almost always ended in a violent reaction, when the discarded adorer would hate vehemently where she had erstwhile loved. Such affairs always made Lily feel glad that she herself was not particularly attracted to anyone at Bridgecrap. The whole thing seemed to her to be so oddly undignified, and besides, it was always the least likeable girls who were overtaken by such infatuations.
Lily knew, unaccountably, that there was a subtly unwholesome element in the school, sometimes a very minor element indeed—but always there.
She guessed, vaguely, at the subjects of certain whispered conversations and giggling references, but although she was quite aware of unenlightened curiosities and perplexities of her own, the thought of sharing them would literally have revolted her. Nor did the whisperers and gigglers ever approach her, instinctively able to discern, as they were, exactly whom they might or might not hope to admit to their foolish, underbred companionship.