"Oh, yes; in the old schoolroom. I have my tea there when we are not by ourselves. I—I don't dislike it." But her face told another tale. Val, who had quite a brute instinct of sympathy, knew that she did dislike it very much.
Tea was the only really pleasant meal at the Abbey; it was relieved of the general's presence, and often of Sue's also—and during the last month Leo had learnt to look forward to it.
A little quiver of the lips accompanied the above assertion, for of late callers had been rather rife, and she had been banished so often that she had come to dread the sound of the door-bell.
"I do think I needn't be classed as 'people';" pursued her old playmate, but without the asperity of his former accents. "I've known you ever since you were so high,"—indicating—"and—and I'm awfully sorry about it all, you know."
It was only Val, Val whom nobody minded, but Leo, taken aback, flushed to her brow.
"Oh, I say, ought I not to have said that? I'm such a rotter, I blurt out with whatever comes first," stammered he, discomfited in his turn. "Leo, you know I didn't mean it. There now, I suppose I oughtn't to call you 'Leo'——" floundering afresh.
"Indeed you may, Val; and I know you meant nothing but what was kind; only I—I am so unaccustomed to hearing—they never talk about me, and I wish they would, oh, I wish they would," her voice broke, but she continued nevertheless: "Val, you don't know how hard it is—oh, what am I saying?"—she stopped confused and panting, terrified at what she had been led into.
"Look here," said Val, slowly, "you don't mind me, do you? You don't need to care what you say before me?—I shan't tell, of course I shan't. They always used to be down upon you at home, and I suppose they go on the same? Just you get it out to me, Leo," and he nodded encouragingly.
By the end of half-an-hour, during which the two had wandered away from the village street and the eyes of spectators, Leo had "got it out," and if the truth were told, pretty thoroughly. Recollect how young, and naturally frank, and in a sense absolutely friendless she was. And then it was only Val—she felt almost as though she were speaking to a dog.
Certainly there was, as we said before, an element of canine sympathy in the silent, solemn, appreciative air with which her companion listened. He never interrupted. When he spoke, it was to utter a brief ejaculation or to put a question, a leading question, one which gently turned the lock a little more on the opening side. Sometimes he merely said, "Well?"—but how comforting was that "Well"!