Flip nodded and grinned, because Erna's tone had been friendly. During dinner they began discussing their parents. Esmée Bodet's father was a lawyer. Erna's father was a surgeon and had done operations on the battlefields. Polly Huber, an American girl from Alabama who had been at the school for three years, had a father who was a newspaper man, and Maggie Campbell's father taught Greek at the University of Edinburgh. "And your father's a painter, isn't he, Pill?" Erna asked. "Yes." "Well, our house needs painting. Do you think he'd do it cheap for us since I know you?" All the girls laughed loudly except Flip, who colored angrily and looked down at her plate with a sulky expression. After dinner when everybody stood up, Madame Perceval said quietly to Flip, "Please wait, Philippa." And all the girls exchanged glances, because that was the tone Madame used when she was not pleased and intended to say so. Flip stood nervously behind her chair and looked down at the table with the empty dessert dishes and the crumbs scattered about and at Madame Perceval's coffee cup with a small amount of dark liquid left in the bottom. "Philippa," Madame said gravely when they had the dining room to themselves except for the maids who were clearing away, "I haven't seen you a great deal with the other girls but several of the teachers have told me that you are always off somewhere sulking and that your attitude is unfriendly in the extreme." "I don't mean to sulk," Flip said. "I didn't know I sulked. And I don't mean to be unfriendly. I don't, truly, Madame." If I had been thinking of Paul instead of Eunice I wouldn't have behaved the way I did, she thought. "When Erna suggested that your father paint her house she was making a joke and you took it seriously and looked hurt and wounded." "I know," Flip said. "It was stupid of me." "But you always do it, don't you?" "Yes," Flip admitted. "I guess I do, most of the time." "I know you're not happy here, Philippa, but when you make it so easy for the girls to tease you, you can't blame them for taking advantage of it. Girls can be very cruel, especially when they get the idea that someone is 'different'." "But I _am_ different," Flip said desperately. "Why?" "I'm so clumsy and I'm the tallest girl in the class. I'm as tall as lots of the seniors. And I fall over things and I'm not good at athletics, and I wasn't blitzed or underground or anything during the war."