"You dear, old, darling duck!" Claire heard a squat, ugly girl with spectacles and a turned-up nose addressed as "a princely pet" by an ardent adorer of fourteen. The mistresses came in for their own share of adulation--"Darling Miss Gifford, I _do_ adore you!" "Miss Gifford, darling, you are prettier than ever!" "Oh, Miss _Gifford_, I was _dying_ to see you!" The morning flew past, and lunch-time brought the gathering of mistresses in staff-room. Mademoiselle's greetings were politely detached, Fraulein was kindly and discursive, Sophie's smile was as bright as ever, but she did not look well. "Oh, I'm all right! It's nothing. Only this horrid old pain!" she said cheerfully. Into her glass of water she dropped three tabloids of aspirin. Every one had been away for a longer or shorter time, visiting relatives and friends; they compared experiences; some had enjoyed themselves, some had not; but they all agreed that they were refreshed by the change. "And where have _you_ been?" asked the drawing mistress of Claire, and exclaimed in surprise at hearing that she had remained in town. "Dear me, I wish I had known! I've been back a fortnight. We might have done something together. Weren't you _dull_?" asked the drawing mistress, staring with curious eyes. "Very!" answered poor Claire, and for a moment struggled with a horrible inclination to cry. After lunch Miss Bates took her cup of coffee to Claire's side, and made an obvious attempt to be pleasant. "I feel quite remorseful to think of your holidays. It's astonishing how little we mistresses know of each other out of school hours. The first school I was in--a much smaller one by the sea,--we were so friendly and jolly, just like sisters, but in the big towns every one seems detached. It's hard on the new-comers. I don't know _what_ I should have done if I hadn't a brother's house to go to on Sundays and holiday afternoons. Except through him, I haven't made a single friend. At the other place people used to ask us out, and we had quite a good time; but in town people are engrossed in their own affairs. They haven't time to go outside." "I wonder you ever left that school! What made you want to change?" "Oh, well! London was a lure. Most people want to come to London, and I had my brother. Do tell me, another time, if you are not going away. It worries me to think of you being alone. How did you come to get this post, if you have no connections in town?" "Miss Farnborough came to stay in Brussels, in the _pension_ which my mother and I had made headquarters for some time. She offered me the post." Miss Bates stared with distended eyes. "How long had she known you?" "About a fortnight, I think. I don't remember exactly." "And you had never seen her before? She knew nothing about you?" "She had never seen me before, but she _did_ know something about me. Professionally speaking, she knew all there was to know."