“Put a warm shawl round you, dear, though the house is not cold; for since so many girls have been suffering from this sort of slight form of influenza, all the passages have been heated much more than they were.”
Mademoiselle left the room. I flew immediately to the table of rules which was pinned against my wall. There was no doubt whatever that the rule in question was there. I had broken it; there was no excuse for me. I wrapped a white shawl round my shoulders and ran downstairs. As I passed through the wide hall I peeped into the schoolroom, which opened directly into it. I saw Baroness Elfreda glancing out at me with an intense and frightened expression on her face. Immediately several other girls looked out also, and then a whisper ran round the room. I felt it more than heard it, and my misery and distress grew worse. I had never before been mixed up with a dreadful thing of this sort. But Mademoiselle Wrex was standing by the Baroness’s sitting-room door. She said, “Vite! vite, mon enfant!” and we found ourselves the next minute at the other side of a thick pair of velvet curtains.
The Baroness was standing by a bright fire made of logs of wood. This was the only room in the house which had the privilege of a fire. The fire gave it all of a sudden a sort of English look. A smarting pain came at the back of my eyes.
“I trust you are better, my child,” said the Baroness.
She came up to me quite kindly, took my hand, and led me to a seat which exactly faced the very bright light which came through two tall windows. She then rang the bell.
“Request Comtesse Riki von Kronenfel to attend here immediately,” was her remark to the servant.
The servant withdrew; there was a dead pause in the room. The Baroness was turning over some papers, and did not take the slightest notice of me.
As soon as Riki entered she glanced nervously round her. When she saw me she turned first red, then very white; then, being evidently quite satisfied that I had betrayed her, she went to the extreme end of the room and sat there with her hands folded.
“You sent for me, my Baroness?” she said in the prettiest tone imaginable, and looking up with pleading blue eyes at the face of her mistress.
The Baroness returned her glance with one full, dark, swift, and indignant.