“Then how—why—what—what in the world did you mean by saying that you mustn’t do it?” demanded Rhoda sternly, and Ella made a gesture as of tearing her hair in confusion.
“I don’t know! It isn’t easy to understand a game when you see only one match. I was confused myself, but I know each side tries for a different goal, and there are ‘backs’ and ‘half-backs’ and ‘forwards,’ just as at football, and, whatever you do, you must not raise your stick above your waist. It’s a murderous-looking game, anyhow. I wondered that they weren’t all killed; and one girl’s hand was bleeding horribly. I asked her if it was very painful, and she stared and said, ‘Oh, I hadn’t noticed it!’ and mopped it up with her handkerchief. Awfully callous, I call it.”
“Oh, I don’t know!” replied Rhoda, airily. “Those flesh wounds don’t hurt. I should never think of taking any notice of a little thing like that. Well, I can’t say I am very much wiser for your instructions, my dear, but I will pump Harold and see what I can get out of him. I have no doubt I could hit all right, for I have a quick eye, and if you can play one or two games it helps you with the rest. But I should be pretty mad if I made a hit and they whistled at me and made me come back. I like to know what I am about.”
“You had better be a goal-keeper,” advised Ella, wisely; “you have no running to do until the ball comes your way, and then at it you go, tooth and nail! Stop it somehow—anyhow—with your hands, your feet, your skirt, your stick. I believe there is an etiquette about it, don’t you know, as there is about all those things, and that it’s more swagger to stop it one way than another, but the main thing is to stop it somehow, and that you simply must do!”
“Humph! If you can! What happens if you can’t?”
“Emigrate to Australia by the first boat! I should think so, at least, to judge by the faces of the other girls when one poor creature did let a ball in. Feerocious, my dear! there was no other word for it. My heart ached for her. But it was a stupid miss, for it looked so easy. I felt sure I could have stopped it.”
“It’s all a matter of nerve. If you lose your head you are sure to play the fool at a critical moment. Fraulein was like that. The moment the game went against her she began to hop about, and puff and pant, and work herself into such a fever that she couldn’t even see a ball, much less hit it. I kept calm, and so of course I always won.”
It did strike Ella that victory under such circumstances would be easily gained, but she was too loyal to say so, and Rhoda leant back against the cushions of the sofa, and continued to discourse on games in general, and school games in particular, with an air of such intimacy and knowledge that no one would have suspected that the object of her visit had been to listen, rather than to teach.
Ella listened meekly to a recital of what her friend intended to do, and be; of the examinations she would pass, the honours she would gain; the influence she would exercise over her fellows; and sighed to think of her own limitations, and the impossibility of such a career ever falling to her lot. And then Rhoda rose, and put on her gloves preparatory to saying good-bye.
“I shall come down to see you again, of course, but I shall be very busy. I am going to have a complete new outfit, and everything as nice as possible.”