“Kitty! Tell her if she wants me she can come here and see me. I’m not going to her.”
“Nonsense, Hannah, you must go; it’s really very important.”
“I don’t see it, and I’m not going,” said Hannah. She crouched up close to the heat which was produced by a little stove, and held out her thin hands towards it.
Grace longed to snatch one of the hands and drag the girl across the hall into the sitting-room. “Hannah,” she said, “you really must come, it’s awfully important. We’re talking about the prize, you know.”
“Oh, I thought you were! Well, then, less than ever do I want to go with you, for I am not interested in the prize.”
“Not interested in the prize!” exclaimed Grace, backing a pace or so and looking fixedly at Hannah; “that does seem ridiculous, Hannah—it really does. Why, of course you’re going to try for it with the rest of us.”
“I don’t know what the rest of you are going to do, but I know what I am not going to do.”
“And what’s that?”
“I am not going to try for the Howard portrait prize.”
“Hannah!”