“Lecture me?” said Mariposa, laughing and bending forward to give Mrs. Willers’ hand a friendly squeeze. “What have I been doing now?”
“That’s just what I’ve come to find out. Left a desk full of work, and Miss Peebles hopping round like a chicken with its head off, to find out what you’ve been doing. I’d have come up before only I couldn’t get away. Mariposa, my dear, I’ve had a letter from Mrs. Shackleton.”
Mariposa’s color deepened. A line appeared between her eyebrows, and she looked out of the window.
“Well,” she said; “and did she say anything about me?”
“That’s what she did—a lot. A lot that sorter stumped me. And I’ve come up here to-day to find out what’s the matter with you. What is it that’s making you act like several different kinds of fool all at once?”
“What do you mean?” said Mariposa weakly, trying to gain time. “What did she tell you?”
“My dear, you know as well as I do what she told me. And I can’t make head or tail of it. What’s come over you?”
“I don’t know,” said the girl in a low voice. “I suppose I’ve changed.”
“Stuff!” observed Mrs. Willers briskly. “Don’t try to tell lies; you don’t know how. One’s got to have some natural capacity for it. You’ve had an offer that makes it possible for you to go to Europe, educate your voice, study French and German, and become a prima donna. Everything’s to be paid—no limit set on time or money. Now, what in heaven’s name made you refuse that?”
Facing her in the bright light, the questioner’s eyes were like gimlets on her face. Mrs. Willers saw its distressed uneasiness, but could read no further. Three days before she had received Mrs. Shackleton’s letter, and had been amazed by its contents. She could neither assign to herself nor to Mrs. Shackleton a reason for the girl’s unexplainable conduct.