There was a silence. Alma flung her hair over her shoulder and began to brush the ends vigorously, while Nancy watched the operation with an intentness that showed her mind to be on other things. Presently Alma said in a grave voice:
"I know that it's none of my business, of course, but I do think, Nancy, that you are making a mistake."
"A mistake," repeated Nancy, in amazement. "How? How do you mean?"
"Well, it seems to me that as far as you are concerned, it has been simply money wasted to send you here."
"Why, what on earth are you talking about, Alma?" exclaimed Nancy, her temper beginning to rise in spite of her amusement at the fluffy Alma's gravely judicial air. Inasmuch as she studied harder and more seriously than any girl in the school, and rivalled Charlotte in brilliant marks, it was interesting as well as irritating to learn that Alma considered her unsuccessful.
"Well, you know as well as I do that Mother's purpose in sending us here was for us to make friends. There isn't a girl in the school that you show the least interest in, except Charlotte, and Charlotte—well——" Alma shrugged her shoulders, expressing thereby what she hesitated to put into words. Instantly Nancy flared up. Usually the most even tempered and controlled of girls, she could not keep down her anger when it was roused by Alma's periodic fits of snobbishness.
"What about Charlotte? Why do you shrug your shoulders like that? Because Charlotte isn't considered perfectly 'nice' by Mildred? Because Mildred thinks Charlotte 'rather ordinary—a bit crude, don'tcherknow?' She's the realest girl in the school, and everyone of them knows it, too! She's the only one whose mind isn't forever running on beaux and dances and other girls' faults. She's the only one of them who has brains and a heart—she's the only real aristocrat of the whole lot! She's the only one of them whose friendship I'd give tuppence-ha'penny for——"
Alma quailed a little under Nancy's indignation—she was indeed a bit ashamed of her snobbish remark; but she did not lower her flag.
"That's no reason why you should let all the other girls know it. We need all the friends we can get, and we can't afford to lose this opportunity of making advantageous connections."
This last bit was rather an unfortunate choice of words, smacking as it did just a bit too strongly of Mildred to soothe Nancy's irate ear at just that moment.