“In one way, perhaps—not another! She wants the money, which she could have in any case; but she is not half so keen as I am for the honour itself—and, after all, that’s the first thing. I can’t do anything in a half-and-half way, and now that I have taken up examinations I am just burning to distinguish myself. It would be a perfect bliss, the height of my ambition, to come out first here, and go up to Oxford, and take honours, and have letters after one’s name, and be a distinguished scholar, written about in the papers and magazines like—like—”
“Yes! Like Miss Mott, for instance. What then?” Rhoda stood still in the middle of her tirade, and stared at the speaker with startled eyes. Miss Mott! No, indeed, she had meant nobody in the least like Miss Mott. The very mention of the name was like a cold douche on her enthusiasm. The creature of her dream was gowned and capped, and moved radiant through an atmosphere of applause. Miss Mott was a commonplace, hard-working teacher, with an air of chronic exhaustion. When one looked across the dining-room, and saw her face among those of the girls, it looked bleached and grey, the face of a tired, worn woman. “The idea of working and slaving all one’s youth to be like—Miss Mott!” Rhoda exclaimed contemptuously, but Miss Everett insisted on her position.
“Miss Mott is a capital example. You could not have a better. She was the first student of her year, and carried everything before her. Her position here is one of the best of its kind, for she is practically headmistress. She would tell you herself that she never expected to do so well.”
“I think it’s very mean of you, Evie, to squash me so! It’s most discouraging. I don’t want to be the least like Miss Mott, and you know it perfectly well. It’s no use talking, for we can’t agree; and really and truly you are the most unsympathetic to me just now.”
Miss Everett looked at her steadily, with a long, tender gaze.
“I seem so, Rhoda, I know I do, but it is only seeming. In reality I’m just longing to help you, but, as you say, you think one thing and I think another, so we are at cross purposes. Come and spend Sunday afternoon with me in my den, dear, and I’ll promise not to preach. I’ll make you so comfy, and show you all my photographs and pretty things, and lay in a stock of fruit and cakes. Do; it will do you good!”
But Rhoda hesitated, longing, yet fearing.
“I’d love it; it would be splendid, but—there’s my Scripture! I want to cram it up a little more, and Sunday afternoon is the only chance. I’m afraid I can’t until after the exam., Evie, dear. I need the time.”
“A wilful lass must have her way!” quoted Miss Everett with a sigh, and that was the last attempt which she made to rescue Rhoda from the result of her own rash folly. Henceforth to the end the girl worked unmolested, drawing the invariable “list” from her pocket at every odd moment, and gabbling in ceaseless repetition, nerved to more feverish energy by the discovery that her brain moved so slowly that it took twice as long as of yore to master the simplest details. She felt irritable and peevish, disposed to tears on the slightest provocation, and tired all over, back and limbs, aching head, smarting eyes, weary, dissatisfied heart. Did every ambition of life end like this? Did it always happen that when the loins were girded to run a race, depression fell like a fetter, and the question tortured: “Is it worth while? Is it worth while?” What was the “right motive” of which Evie had spoken? What was the Vicar’s meaning of “success”? They, at least, seemed to have found contentment as a result of their struggles. Rhoda groped in the dark, but found no light, for the door was barred by the giant of Self-Will.