No, it was not the same ’Tana. And the little gray-haired lady, who slipped ivory knitting needles in and 315 out of silky flosses, watched her with troubled concern as she asked:
“And what do you intend to make of your life, Montana?”
“You are out of patience with me, are you not, Miss Seldon?” asked the girl. “Oh, yes, I know you are; and I don’t blame you. Everything I have ever wanted in my life is in reach of me here—everything a girl should have; yet it doesn’t mean so much to me as I thought it would.”
“But if you would go to school, perhaps—”
“Perhaps I would learn to appreciate all this,” and the girl glanced around at the fine fittings of the room, and then back to the point of her own slipper.
“But I do study hard at home. Doesn’t Miss Ackerman give me credit for learning very quickly? and doesn’t that music teacher hop around and wave his hands over my most excellent, ringing voice? They say I study well.”
“Yes, yes; you do, too. But at a school, my dear, where you would have the association of other girls, you would naturally grow more—more girlish yourself, if I may say so; for you are old beyond your years in ways that are peculiar. Your ideas of things are not the ideas of girlhood; and yet you are very fond of girls.”
“And how do you know that?” asked ’Tana.
“Why, my dear, you never go past one on the street that you don’t give her more notice than the very handsomest man you might see. And at the matinees, if the play does not hold you very close, your eyes are always directed to the young girls in the audience. Yes, you are fond of them, yet you will not allow yourself to be intimate with any.” 316
And the pretty, refined-looking lady smiled at her and nodded her head in a knowing way, as though she had made an important discovery.