The arching eyes and twitching mouth smiled at your foolishness.
Mrs. Waugh's voice went on. It came smoothly, hardly moving her small, round mouth. That was her natural voice. Then suddenly it rose, like a voice that calls to you to get up in the morning.
"Well, Mary—so you've left school. Come home to be a help to your mother."
A high, false cheerfulness, covering disapproval and reproach.
Their gentleness was cold to her and secretly inimical. They had asked her because of Mamma. They didn't really want her.
Half-past six. It was all over. They were going home across the Green.
"Mary, I wish you could learn to talk without affectation. Telling Mrs. Waugh you 'looked like yourself'! If you could only manage to forget yourself."
Your self? Your self? Why should you forget it? You had to remember. They would kill it if you let them.
What had it done? What was it that they should hate it so? It had been happy and excited about them, wondering what they would be like. And quiet, looking on and listening, in the strange, green-lighted, green-dark room, crushed by the gentle, hostile voices.
Would it always have to stoop and cringe before people, hushing its own voice, hiding its own gesture?