"You know, Mona, you may say what you please, but you are rather white about the gills yourself, and you have no cause to be."
Mona stopped and shot a level glance at her companion.
"Why not?" she said. "Because I have been ploughed once already, and so should be used to skinning like the eels?"
"Nonsense! How you contrived to fail once neither I nor any one else can pretend to explain, but certain it is that, with the best of will, you won't achieve the feat a second time. You will be in the Honours list, of course."
Mona shrugged her shoulders. "Possibly," she said quietly, "if I pass. But the question is, shall I pass?
'Oh the little more, and how much it is!
And the little less, and what worlds away!'"
They were walking up and down together now.
"And even if you don't—it will be a disgrace to the examiners, of course, and a frightful fag, but beyond that I don't see that it matters. There is no one to care."
Mona's cheek flushed. She raised her eyebrows, and turned her head very slowly towards her companion, with a glance of enquiry.
"I mean," Lucy said hastily, "you are—that is to say, you are not a country clergyman's daughter like me. If I fail, it will be the talk of the parish. The grocer will condole with me over the counter, the postman will carry the news on his rounds, and the farmers will hear all about it when they come in to market next Wednesday. It will be awfully hard on the Pater; he——"