"Can I endure it?" thought Star. "And yet I must, for I must find out what has really happened."
"Of course I got the note," said Florence the minute they were alone; "but I was not going to tell, for poor Maudie didn't wish it. Now you know, however, you will take her back a message. Will you say to her that I am going to speak to the Mannerses, and if we can we will comply with her wishes? You may tell her at the same time that we don't like people who blow both hot and cold. The sort of friends we appreciate are those who say a thing and do it whatever the consequences. You will tell her. Oh, I know you despise me. Some day you will understand that a girl of my sort hasn't a chance with a girl of your sort. But, all the same, there's some good in me. I like you just awfully, for instance. I think you are sweetly pretty; and you have got such—oh, such an air about you! You might be anyone. I know I'll dream of you to-night; I quite love you. You are fifty times nicer than Susan Marsh—although the Mannerses and I thought a lot of her—or than Maud Thompson, or than—— Oh, dear me! Miss Lestrange, I do wish you could get me into your school. You don't know how fine you'd polish me up; you'd show me that I ought always to speak the truth and everything else. Can't you try?"
Florence's bold face looked wonderfully soft at that moment, and there were actually tears in her black eyes. Star wondered she could speak to her, and yet when she looked again she felt touched by the expression on Florence's face.
"I am sorry for you, but I can't promise to—to help you to get into the school. All the same, I am sorry. You could not, I suppose, let me have that note. I wouldn't read it; I'd just give it back to Maud Thompson."
"My dear child," replied Florence, her manner instantly altering, and a hard, flippant tone coming into her voice, "I have not told you anything about the note. You asked me if I had got one, and I said 'No.' The Manners girls gave me away, and I was forced to confess that I had told a little white lie. White lies are allowable, aren't they?"
"They are not," said Star stoutly.
"Well, anyhow, they are amongst my set. As to the note itself, it was of such small consequence that I tore it up. Well, good-by. Glad to see you another day when you come to church and want a cup of tea."
Star looked back for a moment to where the Manners girls were standing; then she put wings to her feet and ran the rest of the way back to Penwerne Manor.
"What did she want? How is it you have got so chummy with her?" said Ethel Manners, turning to Florence. "You did look upset when we met you! And didn't you blaze up as crimson as anything when we spoke of the note! Did we do wrong to speak of it?"
"You were just horribly nasty, Ethel," said Florence. "You might have known that when I was walking with a strange girl you two ought not to intrude. You don't know your places, and that's a fact."