Claire grimaced again, more unrestrainedly than before.
“That’s not my part. I wish it were. I could play it quite well. The other mistresses are quite civil and pleasant, but they don’t hanker after me one bit. With two exceptions, the girl I live with, and one other, I have not spoken to one of them out of school hours. I don’t even know where most of them live.”
Janet’s face lengthened. Suddenly she turned and asked a sharp direct question:
“Where are you going on Christmas Day?”
Pride and weakness struggled together in Claire’s heart, and pride won. She would not pose as an object of pity!
“Oh, I’m going—out!” said she with an air, but Janet Willoughby was not to be put off so easily as that. Her brown eyes sent out a flash of light. She demanded sternly:
“Where?”
“Really—” Claire tossed her head with the air of a duchess who was so overburdened with invitations that she found it impossible to make a choice between them. “Really, don’t you know, I haven’t quite decided—”
“Claire Gifford, you mean, horrid girl, don’t dare to quibble! You are going nowhere, and you know it. Nobody has invited you for Christmas Day; that’s why you were crying just now—because you had nowhere to go. And you would have gone away this morning, and said nothing, and sat alone in your rooms... I call it mean! Talk of the spirit of Christmas! It’s an insult to me and to mother. How do you suppose we should have felt if we’d found out afterwards?”
“W–what else could I do? How could I tell you?” stammered Claire, blushing. “It would have seemed such a barefaced hint, and I detest hints. And really why should you have felt bad? I’m a stranger. You’ve only seen me once. There could be no blame on you. There’s no blame on anyone. It just happens that it doesn’t quite fit in to visit friends at a distance, and in town—well! I’m a stranger, you see. I have no friends!”