“Was your vocation thrust upon you, Miss Green?” she asked politely.
“It was,” returned that lady, a little icily, the girls thought, but Virginia mistook the tone for one of regret.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “You can’t be half so interested in it as you would be if you could have chosen it. If I were you, I would change, and choose another.”
An inadvertent giggle from Imogene broke the embarrassed silence which followed Virginia’s remark; and led Miss Green to mistake Virginia’s honest interest for ill-bred sarcasm. She gathered the gray knit shawl, which she often wore, more closely about her shoulders, rose from her chair and left the room, saying in a frigid tone as she went:
“Will you come to my room, Virginia, immediately upon the ringing of the study-bell?”
“Why—certainly—Miss Green,” stammered poor surprised Virginia.
“Mean old thing!” muttered Dorothy, as a slam of Miss Green’s door announced her complete departure. “Virginia didn’t—”
“Dorothy,” warned Miss Wallace quietly.
“I beg your pardon, Miss Wallace. I forgot.”
Then Miss Wallace tactfully turned the conversation into other channels, but Virginia could not enter into it with any interest. She could not think how she had been impolite. Such a thought had never entered her mind. Why had Imogene laughed? She caught Priscilla and Mary looking reproachfully at Imogene. Even Dorothy seemed annoyed. The study-bell put an end to the forced conversation, and as Virginia went slowly toward Miss Green’s room, after encouraging pats and squeezes from the girls, who left her to go up-stairs, Miss Wallace asked Imogene to remain a few moments with her.