I had underrated his capacity for evil-doing. When he glared at me over the upper frame of the big slate, the too-familiar heart-nausea got hold upon me.
“You”—he seldom deigned to address me by my proper name—“pretend to tell me that nobody helped you with this sum?”
“Nobody!” I uttered, made bold by innocence.
“Ha-a-a-a!” malevolence triumphant in the drawl waxing into a snarl. “As I happened to see you and your sister last night in the hall, and heard you ask her to show you how to do it, that tale won’t go down, my lady.”
“She didn’t help me—” I began, eagerly.
“Silence!” thumping the slate upon the table, and scowling ferociously. “How dare you lie to me?”
I glanced at Mea in an agony. She arose in her place, pale to the lips, albeit she had never felt his wrath, but her voice was firm:
“I only told her the sum was not right. I did not tell her what part of it was wrong.”
The blending of snarl and smile was something to be recollected for all time. The smile was for her, the snarl for me.
“It is natural that your sister should try to defend you. But will you please tell me, Miss Pert, what more help you could have wanted than to be told by somebody who knew—as your sister did—that your sum was wrong? Of course, you could rub out and begin again. But for her you would not have tried a second time. Bring that sponge here!”