“Of course—the same she gets now,” Laura returned, but Olga was sure that the pay would not come out of Miss Bayly’s purse.
Laura went on thoughtfully, “The other matter is not so easily arranged. Even if we get her a better boarding place, she might be just as lonely as at Miss Rankin’s. Evidently she does not make friends easily.”
“No, she is plain and unattractive and so painfully conscious of it that she thinks nobody can want to be her friend, so she draws into herself and—and pushes everybody away,” Olga was speaking her thought aloud—one of her thoughts—the other that had been in her heart since her talk with Lizette, she refused to consider. But it insisted upon being considered when she went away. It was with her in her own room where Lizette’s hopeless words seemed to echo and re-echo. Finally, in desperation she faced it.
“I can’t have her come here!” she cried aloud. “It would mean that I’d never be sure of an hour alone. She’d be forever running in and out and I’d feel I must be forever bracing her up—pumping hope and courage into her. It’s too much to ask of me. I’m alone in the world as she is, but I’m not whining. I stand on my own feet and other people can stand on theirs. I can’t have that girl here and I won’t—and that ends it!” But it didn’t end it. Lizette’s hopeless eyes, Lizette’s reckless voice, would not be banished from her memory, and when Thursday evening the girl herself came, Olga knew that she must yield—there was no other way.
Lizette paused on the threshold. “You can still back out,” she said, longing and pride mingling in her eyes. “I can get back to Rankin’s in time for my share of liver and prunes.”
Olga drew her in and shut the door. “Your days at Miss Rankin’s are numbered,” she said, “that is if you will come here. There’s a little room across the hall you can have if you want it.”
Lizette dropped into a chair, the colour slowly ebbing from her sallow cheeks. “Don’t fool with me, Olga,” she cried, “I’m—not up to it.”
“I’m not fooling.”
“But—I don’t understand.” The girl’s lips were quivering.
Olga went on, “And your days at Silverstein’s are numbered too. I showed your embroidery to Miss Laura, and she has found you a place at Bayly’s Art Store. You can go there as soon as you can leave Silverstein’s,” she ended. To her utter dismay Lizette dropped her head on the table and began to cry. Olga sat looking at her in silence. She did not know what to do. But presently Lizette lifted her blurred and tear-stained face and smiled through her tears.