"Oh, don't! That is what that horrid old lady principal said. What could possibly happen to me, I should like to know?"
He looked at her again, with his provoking serenity.
"Oh, nothing, of course! At least, not to you."
"Why not to me, particularly?" she asked half petulantly. She did not know whether to be pleased or annoyed that he should credit her with the same infallible quality as every one else.
"Because things of that nature do not, I believe, happen to girls of your nature. But of course I may be wrong; I am quite ignorant in these matters."
She smiled at his show of humility; it was so characteristic of him to affect indifference about his own opinions. But she had learnt something already that day, and she remembered Mr. Parker, and thought that Paul very possibly was wrong on this occasion.
"Every one tells me that. I can't see how I am different," she said thoughtfully.
"I shouldn't worry about it, if I were you. You could not be expected to see. But it is just that little difference that has probably carried you through."
Katharine remembered Mr. Parker again, and laughed outright.
"I don't think so," she said. "I think it is more likely to have been my sense of humour."