“Julia? Why, she is two years younger than you,” Mrs. Whittaker exclaimed.
“Yes, dearest, I know it; but I am young for my age and Julia is old for hers. If she comes out in another year, I can wait until she is ready.”
“But why? I never heard of such a thing!”
“I am not very great on society,” said Maud. “I would rather wait until Ju is fully fledged.”
“And you will stay at school?”
“Yes, I’d just as soon, only when one comes to think of it, I’ve learnt all they can teach me, as far as I know. We are both of us much too big to be at that school—it’s a perfect farce. Why don’t you take us away and give us a course of lessons? That is the proper thing to do—like they do in Paris. Or why don’t you send us to Paris for a year? Then we may contrive to speak French that is French, and not Park polyglot.”
“Maudie!” cried Regina.
“Yes, I know, dearest. You may say ‘Maudie!’ but facts are facts. The other day, being, or being supposed to be, the best French speaker in the school, I was put up to talk to a French lady who was staying at the Vicarage. You know Mrs. Charlton speaks French like a native—indeed, I think she has French relations, and I think this was an old schoolfellow. Anyway, I was put up to talk to her as being the show girl at French conversation.”
“Well?” Regina’s tone was as the sniff of a war-horse who scents the battle from afar.
“I couldn’t make head or tail of her,” said Maudie. “Ju did—at least, in a kind of way she did. All the same she had to repeat everything she said three times over, and then whatever-her-name-was had to make shots at her meaning.”