“I did my lessons studiously, as good as I could.”, Lalage was a remarkably good speller for her age. Many much older people would have staggered over “studiously.” She took it, so to speak, in her stride.
“I wrote out a lot of questions on the history and answered them all without looking at the book. I knew it perfectly. The morning came and with it history. I answered all the questions except one—the character of Mary. The insulter repeated it, commanding me to ‘Say it now.’ I said it with a bland smile upon my face, as I thought how well I knew my history.”
“Lalage,” I said, pausing in the narrative, “did you make that smile bland simply because you knew your history or was its blandness part of the tactics, ‘Balm and haughty in her presence?’”
“Calm,” said Lalage, “calm, not balm. Never mind about that. Go on.”
“The insulter,” I read, “turned crimson with rage and shrieked demnation and stamped about the floor. Cooling down a bit, she said, ‘You shall write it out ten times this afternoon.’ Naturally I was astonished, for I had said it perfectly correctly when she told me. I had, however, a better control over my temper than she had, and managed, despite my passionate thoughts, to smile blandly all through, though it made her ten times worse.”
“Well?” said Lalage when I had finished.
“I am a little confused,” I said. “I thought the story was to be about an insult offered by Miss Battersby to some one else, you, or perhaps me.” “It is,” said Lalage. “That’s what the prize is for, the best insult.”
“But this seems to me to be about an insult applied by the author to Miss Battersby. I couldn’t conscientiously go in for a competition in which I should represent myself as doing a thing of that sort.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Lalage. “I didn’t insult her. She insulted me.”
“Come now, Lalage, honour bright! That smile of yours! How would you like any one to make you ten times worse by smiling blandly at you when you happened to be stamping about the floor crimson in the face and shrieking——”