It was an oppressive evening: all day long a hot north wind had scoured the streets, veiling things and people in clouds of gritty dust; the sky was still like the prolonged reflection of a great fire. The hoped-for change had not come, and the girls who strolled the paths of the garden were white and listless. They walked in couples, with interlaced arms; and members of the Matriculation Class carried books with them, the present year being one of much struggling and heartburning, and few leisured moments. Mary Pidwall and Cupid were together under an acacia tree at the gate of the tennis-court; and it was M. P. who had cast the above gibe at Laura. At least Laura took it as a gibe, and scowled darkly; for she could never grow hardened to ridicule.
As she and Evelyn re-passed this spot in their perambulation, a merry little lump of a girl called Lolo, who darted her head from side to side when she spoke, with the movements of a watchful bird—this [P.241] Lolo called: "Evelyn, come here, I want to tell you something."
"Yes, what is it?" asked Evelyn, but without obeying the summons; for she felt Laura's grip of her arm tighten.
"It's a secret. You must come over here."
"Hold on a minute, Poppet," said Evelyn persuasively, and crossed the lawn with her characteristically lazy saunter. Minutes went by; she did not return.
"Look at her Laura-ship!" said a saucebox to her partner. The latter made "Hee-haw, hee-haw!" and both laughed derisively.
The object of their scorn stood at the farther end of the wire-net fence: all five fingers of her right hand were thrust through the holes of the netting, and held oddly and unconsciously outspread; she stood on one leg, and with her other foot rubbed up and down behind her ankle; mouth and brow were sullen, her black eyes bent wrathfully on her faithless friend.
"A regular moon-calf!" said Cupid, looking up from THE TEMPEST, which was balanced breast-high on the narrow wooden top of the fence.
"Mark my words, that child'll be plucked in her 'tests'," observed M. P.
"Serve her right, say I, for playing the billy-ass," returned Cupid, and killed a giant mosquito with such a whack that her wrist was stained with its blood. "Ugh, you brute! ... gorging yourself on me. But I'm dashed if I know how Evelyn can be bothered to have her always dangling round."