“I cannot understand you,” she said, after a pause. “You are so noble, and yet you are so hard. Are good, very good, people often like you?”
“I am not good. I don’t think I shall ever be good again,” said poor Leslie. She sat down on the nearest seat, and covered her face with her trembling hands.
Annie switched on the electric light.
“At least there need be no more study,” she said, after a pause.
Leslie did not take the slightest notice.
Annie sat down on a sofa, took up the novel she had been reading that afternoon, and turned a page or two listlessly. Presently she flung it down and uttered a heartrending sigh. That sigh reached Leslie. She looked up, and tried to speak in a cheerful tone.
“Are not you going to get out your books? You know you have so much to do before the honor examination?”
“I do not mean to study any more. Did not you hear me say so?”
“But why? I cannot understand.”
“The motive for study has gone. I shall take my pass exam., and let that suffice. I shall leave Wingfield at the end of term.”