Mama would certainly swoop down again, probably without warning, and resume Laura as suddenly as she had discarded her.
That was how mama always did things, one felt sure.
Laura herself, although evidently aware of her shortcomings, accepted them with a grave, but unexaggerated, regret. She seemed, quite without arrogance, to know that, even educationally, there were other standards than those of Lundeen, and that her connection with these latter was after all merely transitory.
What really distressed her, and shocked her too, I think, was the attitude of the other girls.
Compared with the hotel child, there was only one word that adequately described these daughters of so many excellent English homes—and that word was uncivilised.
They played unbeautiful games violently, they spoke in hideous slang, they were rudest when they intended to be most friendly.
Towards Laura di san Marzano, indeed, they did not wish nor attempt to display friendliness. They were simply contemptuous.
And I saw that the hotel child minded that, both from pride and from ultra-developed social instinct.
My work was entirely amongst the elder girls, and I saw very little of Laura during her brief stay, but towards the end of it, something happened. The rumour arose and spread like wild-fire, even to reaching the Common Room of the teaching staff, that Laura di san Marzano was in disgrace with her fellows for cheating over an examination paper.
The tradition of Lundeen was that of the public-school code. Cribbing was permissible: ‘copying’ or peeping at the questions set for an examination, was impossible.