But her happiness, when she drove them at length from her, caught at the advancing figure of Isabel, with a cry and a clasp of the hand: “My dear!—no, we 've only got a minute, because lunch is early—one o'clock, and cold—you don't mind, do you, dear; but there's to be such a dinner to-night, and I've just had four mothers, and wise is n't the word for what I've been, although I confused all their children as I always do, bless their hearts. But, oh! the term's over, and I could go on my knees and thank Heaven that it is, because I 've never hated anything so much, and if it had lasted another week I should have struck off Mrs. Dormer's head for the way she's treating you, for dead sure certain—”
“Archie's not coming back, you know,” Isabel interrupted.
“Oh, my dear, I knew. He went and saw Moy-Thompson last week, and of course it's the wisest thing, and I only wish my Freddie was as young and we'd be off from here tomorrow.” She stopped and sighed a little and looked through the window at the hard, shining ground, the stiff, bare trees, the sharp outline of the buildings. “But it's no use wishing,” she went on cheerfully enough, “and we won't any of us think of next term at all but only of the blessed month of freedom that's in front of us.” Her voice softened; she put her hand on Isabel's arm. “All the same, my dear, I'm glad you and Archie are getting away from it all. It was touching him, you know.”
“Yes, I saw it,” the girl answered. “And I don't want him to schoolmaster again if he can help it. I think with father's help he 'll be able to get a Government office of some sort.” She hesitated, then said, smiling a little, “Are you and Mr. Comber—” She stopped.
“Yes, my dear,” said Mrs. Comber bruskily, “we are—and there 's no doubt that things are better than they have been. I suppose marriage is always like that: there 's the thrilling time at first, and then you find it is n't there any longer and you've got to make up your mind to getting along. Things rub you up, you know, and I'm sure I 've been as tiresome as anything, and then there's a good big row and the air's cleared—and shall I wear that big yellow hat or the black one this afternoon?”
“The black one fits the day better,” said Isabel absent-mindedly. She was wondering whether the time would ever come when she and Archie would feel ordinary about each other.
“But isn't it funny,” she went on, “that here we are at the end of the term, and already, with the holiday beginning, all our quarrels and fights about things like that silly umbrella are seeming impossible? It was all too absurd, and yet I was as angry as anyone.”
“It all comes,” said Mrs. Comber, “of our living too close. Now that we're going to spread out over the holidays, we 're as friendly as anything, although really, my dear, I hate Mrs. Dormer as much as ever”—which was difficult to believe when that lady arrived at a quarter-past two to pick up Mrs. Comber and Isabel and to go with them to the prize-giving.
Her dress was obviously very stiff and difficult, with a high, black neck to it, with little ridges of whalebone all around it, and out of this she spoke and smiled. The two ladies were very pleasant to one another as they walked down the path to the school hall.
“And where are you going for your Christmas vacation, Mrs. Comber?”