"Exactly," said Agatha, pleased to find that her logic had penetrated. "It often happens so. Look at that young Italian with the lovely eyes who wrote the magnificent poetry that you weren't allowed to read! and had to smuggle into the dormitory at night after the lights were out! Now everybody raved about him until they found that he took opium and drank."
"And then they promptly dropped him: just as this Mrs. Howden did Lynn, when she found that she taught. It's an exactly parallel case," agreed Mrs. Hadwell, looking straight at Lynn with a perfectly innocent face and inwardly wondering how her friend could preserve such a stony impenetrability of countenance.
"Certainly it is," said Agatha, triumphantly, "except that of course it's wicked to drink and it's quite respectable to teach. But it comes to the same thing in the end."
"So many things do," said Lynn with a little laugh. "Still, Agatha, it's not necessarily wickedness that makes people drink. Some people drink in the same way that they breathe—because to stop would be to die or to go mad."
"What unpleasant people," said Agatha, virtuously. "I'm glad I'm not like that. Still, even if I were I'm sure that I could stop it—I can't understand people being so weak. And, speaking of that Ricossia—whatever became of him? He was so wicked and he did look so nice in evening clothes. I used to be awfully gone on him and so were all the girls in the Sixth. It wasn't because he was wicked, you know," she added hastily.
"No, indeed; the wickedness of Beelzebub would have availed him nothing if he hadn't also been decorative in evening clothes. Agatha, don't you want this little chocolate cake with the nut in the top?"
Agatha did: and she also wanted some information on the subject of Ricossia.
"Why are you so determined not to talk about him? He was your protégé from the start. You took him up—you and Mr. Amherst—I don't believe he would ever have been so popular and run after if you hadn't started it."
"Yes, what has become of that boy?" queried Mrs. Hadwell with sudden interest. "Of course he has gone to the dogs, we all know that: but what particular dogs and where?"
"I am not his keeper," answered Lynn, lightly. "Do you know that it's about time I left, Del?"