"I have a lesson--to give."
"Nonsense! You're not fit to give a lesson. Besides, they are all
folderol, anyway, half of them. A dozen lessons, more or less, won't
make any difference; they'll play just as well--and just as atrociously.
Come, I insist upon taking you to Miss Neilson's."
"No, no, thank you! I really mustn't. I--" She could say no more. A
strong, yet very gentle hand had taken firm hold of her arm in such
a way as half to support her. A force quite outside of herself was
carrying her forward step by step--and Miss Hawthorn was not used to
strong, gentle hands, nor yet to a force quite outside of herself.
Neither was she accustomed to walk arm in arm with Mr. Cyril Henshaw to
Miss Billy's door. When she reached there her cheeks were like red roses
for color, and her eyes were like the stars for brightness. Yet a minute
later, confronted by Miss Billy's astonished eyes, the stars and the
roses fled, and a very white-faced girl fell over in a deathlike faint
in Cyril Henshaw's arms.
Marie was put to bed in the little room next to Billy's, and was
peremptorily hushed when faint remonstrance was made. The next morning,
white-faced and wide-eyed, she resolutely pulled herself half upright,
and announced that she was all well and must go home--home to Marie was
a six-by-nine hall bed-room in a South End lodging house.
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