She burst out laughing at the dismay which Lydia, involuntarily, and to her own vexation, felt that she reflected upon her face.
“You don’t like that, do you?” remarked the terrible Miss Graham. “You want to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds—keep in with everyone all round, and boss the lot of us. I know your sort. I daresay you’ll bring it off, too, given you’re here long enough.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Lydia, instinctively adopting the phraseology of her surroundings.
Rosie gave her little shrug.
“Don’t you worry, I’m only chaffing. I shan’t make mischief. I like pulling your leg,” explained Miss Graham kindly, “because it’s so dead easy, that’s all.”
“Don’t mind her, dear,” said Marguerite. “That’s her style, that is. It doesn’t mean anything. I say, do hark at that girl in there!”
Faint sounds, as of an eloquent outpouring of words mingled with an occasional sob, came from the partition behind which Gina and the principal were secluded.
“She’s crying dreadfully,” said Lydia, with a dim idea of diminishing, by her compassionate tone, the effect of her previous comment upon Miss Ryott’s methods.
A sardonic glance from Rosie Graham made her uneasily aware that this manœuvre had been only too transparent.
However, Rosie only remarked scornfully: