‘I couldn’t! They’d find me out.’
Sorell, rather puzzled, suggested that she might become a Home Student like Nora, and go in for a Literature or Modern History Certificate. Connie, who was now sitting moodily over a grate with no fire in it, with her chin in her hands, only shook her head.
‘I don’t know anything—I never learnt anything. And everybody here’s so appallingly clever!’
Then she declared that she would go and have tea with the Master of Beaumont, and ask his advice. ‘He told me to learn something,’—the tone was one of depression, passing into rebellion—‘but I don’t want to learn anything!—I want to do something!’
Sorell laughed at her.
‘Learning is doing!’
‘That’s what Oxford people think,’ she said defiantly. ‘I don’t agree with them.’
‘What do you mean by “doing”?’
Connie poked an imaginary fire.
‘Making myself happy’—she said slowly, ‘and—and a few other people!’