Nina broke it, to say again: “How pretty!” She knew she had said it before, or something like it, but she could think of nothing else—and she wanted to say something.
He put his hand over hers as it lay on his arm. She looked up at him quickly.
“Well?” he said, stopping to look down into her eyes and tightening his clasp on her hand. “Are you sorry you came to Beechwood?”
“No——”
“Then be glad. My dear, I wish you could ever be as glad as I am.”
Then they walked on, still with his hand on hers.
Nina and Molly sat on a locker swinging their feet and eating their lunch in the Slade corridor next day. Nina was humming softly under her breath.
“What are you so happy for all of a sudden?” Molly asked. “Your sketch-club things are the worst I’ve ever seen, and the Professor was down on you like a hundred of bricks this morning.”
“I’m not happy,” said Nina, turning away what seemed to Molly a new face.