I did repeat it.
“But straight,” said Riki—“straight? That means a line. I make it difficult in my drawing. My line is always what you call wobbly.”
I could not help laughing.
“There, now, you are much more of the agreeable. What would you say to me?”
I felt that I must indeed speak very plainly to this girl.
“Listen,” I said. “You know the rules with regard to letter-writing.”
She understood me well enough now. The colour left her cheeks and fluttered back again like a waving flag; her lips were slightly parted; she looked at me with wide-open eyes.
“You know the rules,” I said. “No girl—no German girl, or Italian girl, or French girl, or Dutch girl, or any girl in the school—without the consent of her parents, or the special leave of the Baroness, is allowed to post letters except through the post-box in the hall.”
“Oh, that is very nice,” she said—“very nice.”
She waited expectantly.