When he had gone she cried as she had never cried before, and all because she had spurned his proffered reconciliation. From the other side of the thin partition that separated the two rooms, she could hear the sharp “plock” as her father wrenched his collar off the stud, and the steady nasal monotone of her mother’s voice. She could not discern any words, but from the vicious way in which her father kept stumbling up against things she guessed that they were quarrelling....
CHAPTER II
JEUNESSE
§ 1
CATHERINE won an open scholarship to the Upton Rising High School for Girls. She did not win it because of any particular brilliance or erudition in her examination papers; she won it, as a matter of fact, because Mr. McGill, one of the Governors, happened to remark to Miss Forsdyke, the headmistress: “I hear Weston’s got his daughter in for a scholarship.”
Miss Forsdyke said, “Weston?—Weston?—Let me see—I believe I’ve heard the name somewhere ... Er ... who is he?”
“One of the men at the Downsland Road School.... Not a bad sort.... I bet old Clotters’ll be mad if Weston’s girl gets anything. Clotters’ boy missed last year....”
Now Clotters was the headmaster of the Downsland Road Council School. Mr. Weston did not like Mr. Clotters.... Mr. McGill did not like Mr. Clotters.... And even Miss Forsdyke did not like Mr. Clotters....
Thus it happened that Catherine obtained a scholarship to the Upton Rising High School for Girls.
In her English paper she was asked to analyse: “There is a tide in the affairs of men....” She began:
“There”—subject; “is” predicate; “a tide” object—according to a well-established form of procedure which sometimes enabled her to get her analysis right without in the least understanding what she was about.