"Father, aren't you tired?—Miss Cunliffe, you are tiring father," said Lucy at last, running up to the door and trying to speak calmly.
"No, my dear," said her father. "On the contrary, I am intensely interested.—You must tell me that story again, Miss Cunliffe. Would you like to come and see my library?"
The two went off together, and Lucy felt almost as though she must burst into tears. Phyllis's eyes again met her face, and she had to restrain her feelings. The "I told you so" look was too maddening almost for endurance.
Rosamund's love of power showed itself further in the arrangement of her bedroom. She took down the dividing curtain between herself and Jane Denton without asking any one's permission; and she slept in the bed intended for Jane, and rearranged the drawers, putting them into another part of the room; and complained about the wardrobe, saying that she would like it put opposite the door instead of in its present position. And whatever she wished was immediately done, and whatever she said was said so politely that no one took offense. And Lucy had to confess to herself that Phyllis was right, and that Rosamund would be a power—the leading power—in the school.
Early the next day the two teachers arrived. Mademoiselle Omont was very French in appearance, very dark, with sparkling black eyes and neatly arranged soft dark hair. She had a truly Parisian accent, and a pretty, graceful way about her. Miss Archer was a stolid-looking woman of about five-and-thirty years of age. She had a long talk, on her arrival, with Mrs. Merriman, and then she went to her room and stayed there for some little time, so that it was not until tea-time that the girls and the two resident governesses met.
Lucy looked with great approbation at Miss Archer when she took her seat opposite the tea-tray.
"She will bring order into this chaos," thought the girl. "She will force all these girls to behave properly. She will insist on order. I see it in her face."
But as the thought passed through Lucy's mind, Rosamund jumped suddenly up from her own place, requested Phyllis Flower to change with her, and sat down close to Miss Archer. During tea she talked to the English governess in a low tone, asking her a great many questions, and evidently impressing her very much in her favor.
"Oh, dear!" thought Lucy, "if this sort of thing goes on I shall lose my senses. If there is to be any order, if the whole scheme which mother has thought out so carefully, and father has approved of, means to establish a girl like Rosamund Cunliffe here as our leader, so that we are forced to do every single thing she wishes, I shall beg and implore of father and mother to let me go and live with Aunt Susan in the old Rectory at Dartford."
Lucy's cheeks were flushed, and she could scarcely keep the tears back from her eyes. After tea, however, as she was walking about in front of the house, wondering if she should ever know a happy moment again, Miss Archer made her appearance. When she saw Lucy she called her at once to her side.