At this moment Molly met the quizzical eyes of Hester Temple. Hester's eyes seemed to say, as plainly as if she spoke the words, "How disgraceful it is of you to enthuse in that open manner! I knew you would do it—I read your character from the first."
Molly found herself blushing; then a slight sense of irritation took possession of her heart.
Breakfast was a meal quickly got over. The girls were all more or less preoccupied with the thoughts of the lectures which they were to attend that morning. Amy Frost, who sat next to Molly, was quite disconsolate.
"I don't know half my French," she said, appealing to Kate. "Mlle. Lebrun is so frightfully strict, and she does gabble so when she gets excited, that I can't take in half she says. She was awfully dissatisfied with my last résumé of her lecture—she held me up to ridicule before the other girls. I blush to think of it even yet."
"Well, Amy, know your French, and you won't be ridiculed," replied Kate, in a somewhat tart voice.
She was busy pouring out coffee, attending to the wants of everyone, and giving herself no thought at all.
"You haven't touched anything," said Molly at last.
Kate gave her one of her quick, brilliant smiles.
"It is all right," she answered; her smile was followed by a sigh. "I am only at the other end of the pivot," she continued. "I thought of no one but myself a fortnight ago, and now I think of everybody except myself. It is just the reaction, nothing more whatever. You will soon deplore my selfishness."