“And why this sudden interest in Maria Patterson, if I may ask?” Patricia was still smiling in the way Honor knew and did not like. “She never was your heart’s own that I know of, _chérie_. What, I say, does it matter about her? We are all happy, aren’t we?”
“_Voyons_, Patricia! tell her!” said Vivette. “We know our Moriole. When her face sets in that manner, she is Gibraltar in person. If we want to hear anything, we must first tell; that sees itself.”
“Tell yourself, then!” Patricia yawned delicately. “The subject fails to interest me.”
Honor turned to Vivette, whose honest face was pleasanter to look on at this moment than that of the school beauty.
“Marie is--avay!” said Vivette. “She is vat you call in Cov-en-tri. There are six days, we speak her not, we look her not.”
“She has thiefed!” Vivette spoke low, with a glance over her shoulder. “_Chut!_ Madame knows not, nor our Sister. Solely of ourselves we de-cide to--vat vord is dat, Patricia? Carve? Cot?”
“Oh, do hush, Vivette!” said Patricia rather rudely. “You make my ears ache. If you _must_ know, Honor, the poor thing--as you call her--and as she certainly is--stole a ring from my jewel-box. There! are you satisfied? We were not sent here to consort with thieves, so we have simply--shall I say eliminated her? As I told you, she no longer exists.”
“Oh, Patricia! Oh, girls! there must be some mistake!”
Genuinely distressed, Honor looked from one face to another. But now an excited babble broke out, the shrill young voices rising higher and higher.
Maria had always been a sneak, Moriole knew she had. She was a tale-bearer, a meddler, a spy. She was always poking her nose into other people’s affairs; and so on and so on.
Honor listened, her eyes growing wider and wider, as they did when she was troubled. Suddenly her cheeks flushed; her heart began to beat violently. She seemed to hear a voice speaking; a rich, mellow voice, with the sound of bells in it.
“And thus it is our custom to allow no evil to be spoken of any person without a good word being added by each one of the family.”
“If I had dark hair,” she said to herself, “I could do it! If I had dark hair, I could do it!”
Then suddenly she looked up, first at Patricia’s beautiful, scornful face, then at the others, all excited, all full of anger.