Poor little Louise.... She had been really fond of her at the beginning.... She had thought for a time that she might even supplant Alwynne.... But Louise had disappointed her.... She had let her work go to the dogs.... All her originality and charm fizzled out.... She had ceased to be interesting.... And she, Clare, had naturally been bored and had shown it.... Why couldn't the child take it quietly? If Louise had only known--and had conducted herself with tact--Clare had been preparing to be nicer to her again.... She had been deeply interested in her performance of the morning, had recognised its uncanny sincerity--had thought, with a distinct quickening of interest, that Louise was recovering herself at last, and that it might be as well to take her in hand again.... Oh, she had been full of benevolent impulses! But then Louise had been tiresome again ... had stopped her and made a scene.... She hated scenes ... at least (with a laugh) scenes that were not of her own devising....
She supposed she should have recognised that the child was overwrought--terribly overwrought by the emotions aroused by such an interpretation as she had insisted upon giving.... She ought never to have been allowed to play it like that.... That was Alwynne's doing.... Alwynne had persuaded Clare to leave Louise to her own devices.... Alwynne was so headstrong.... She hoped that Alwynne would never need to realise how much she was to blame....
Here she became aware that her conscience was convulsed with cynical laughter. She flushed in the darkness, her opportune sense of injury increasing.
Alwynne might well be distressed.... If any awkward questions should be asked, Alwynne might find herself uncomfortably placed.... People would wonder that she had not noticed how unbalanced Louise was growing.... Every one knew how intimate, how ridiculously intimate, she and Louise had become.... Alwynne had fussed over her like an old hen ... had even on occasion questioned her, Clare's, method with her.... She must have known what was in Louise's mind.... Yet Clare had no doubt that people would be only too ready to accuse her, rather than Alwynne, of criminal obtuseness.... Henrietta Vigers, for instance.... Henrietta would be less prejudiced than many others, though.... She was no friend to Alwynne.... It might do no harm to talk over the matter with Henrietta Vigers.... A word or two would be enough....