For Miss Bella had “ways” that were distinctly rasping. She was abominably selfish, and her big family of brothers and sisters had spoiled her from the day she could toddle.
She was, besides, the uncomfortable kind of little girl in whose eyes you always saw reflected whatever was amiss with you. You might have on a hat of ravishing beauty, but if your belt had worked up and your skirt had worked down, Bella’s glance ignored your highly satisfactory top and fastened on your middle. Not until after she had known Bella Wayne for some months did Hildegarde begin to divine her own shortcomings in the matter of dress. No gulf of years, or respect for high standing in the school, deterred Bella from letting Miss Mar know that she could never, never wear with success a checked shirt-waist. Why not? Because. And for the same excellent reason, Miss Mar must have her things made plainer. No puffing; no shirring. “I can wear ‘fluffery,’ but you can’t. You’re much too like an old goddess or Boadicea, or some whacking person like that,” which was tepid and discreet in comparison with many of her deliverances. She would ask you a highly inconvenient question as soon as wink, and her own frankness was a thing to make you cold down your back. An eye that nothing escaped, the keenest of little noses for a secret, a ruthless finger for any sensitive spot—that was Bella Wayne at twelve. It was the second time that she was being so kindly helped by Miss Hildegarde, and yet more than at the reduction of “those disgusting fractions” Bella looked at her new friend, bent so low over the slate that her sole ornament, a silver locket, swung against the dado of dragons, without whose scaly support Bella could never hope to bring her mind down to mathematics for a moment. She reflected that she had never seen Miss Mar without that locket. Was there anything inside it? Her fingers itched to open it and see. It was suspended round the smooth neck on a narrow velvet ribbon. Bella, supposed to be following the course of reasoning by which it was to be demonstrated that “since 100 pounds of coal cost $0.33 per hundredweight, 385 pounds (which are equal to 3.85 times 100 pounds) will cost 3.85 times $0.33,” she was in reality making mental calculation of a quite different character, as she studied the little black velvet bowknot that rested on the milk-white nape of Miss Mar’s neck, just underneath a flaxen ring of hair. One end of the bow was longer than the other.
“Five times three are fifteen. Five and carry one—see, Bella?”
“Yes.” What Bella saw, with that look of luminous intelligence, was that the silver locket was sliding into Miss Mar’s lap.
“Eight times three—oh!” But before Hildegarde could close her fingers on the fallen trinket, Bella had snatched it up and carried it away behind the syringas.
“Give me back my locket!” called Hildegarde. “Give it back this minute!”
Bella made off to a remoter fastness. Hildegarde pursued her. But Hildegarde never could catch anybody, and Bella was already the champion runner of the school. “Bella, I never show that to anybody. I won’t forgive you if you open it.”
“Oh, I must see why you say that!” Bella stopped and tried the fastening. Hildegarde rushed at her, but Bella fled at each approach. At last the big girl stopped breathless, and tried moral suasion. The little girl only laughed, and standing just out of reach had the effrontery to open the locket and make unseemly comment upon what she found within.
“My gracious! Isn’t he a sweet? Where does he live? Does he go to church? I’m sure I’ve never seen this bee-yew-tiful young man before. Girls, do you want to look at Miss Mar’s sweetheart. Come and see this darling duck!” She summoned the laughing group that had been looking on.
But Bella only pretended to show them. Every time anybody came near, she covered the face with her thumb. But Hildegarde, lacking the small satisfaction of knowing that, worn out with the race and scarlet with indignation, breathless, outraged, pursued the fleet little villain from group to group, and after the bell rang, from garden to hall. In vain.