"I'll be wherever you want me and whenever," she replied.... "We might go away for a time," she suggested.
Stephanie shook her head.
"I'll go if you want very much but it doesn't appeal to me. It will only postpone, by the length of our absence, my restoration to—good standing!" she smiled.
"You wish to stay here?"
"Yes—among my friends—to the end that I may learn who they are."
"You may have some bad quarters-of-an-hour, and receive some shocks beside," her mother cautioned.
"Let them come—I've received enough shocks already to make me immune. It will be amusing, diverting, serve to make the time pass more rapidly."
"My child!" said Mrs. Mourraille kindly. "You don't appreciate just what you are saying."
"I do, mother dear, and what it means also. I have to face it, so I may as well get out of it what I can, and meet it with a smile. I may be wrong, but to my mind there is nothing like indifference for such a situation."