Gillian, however, being given to think for herself in all cases of counsel from Aunt Jane, thought it could do no harm to beguile the brushing of the child’s hair by asking why Kalliope would not come to the concert.
‘Oh, it’s a great secret, but Maura told me in the cloakroom. It is because Mr. Frank wants to be her--to be her--her admirer,’ said Valetta, cocking her head on one side, and adding to the already crimson colour of her cheeks.
‘Nonsense, Val, what do you and Maura know of such things?’
‘We aren’t babies, Gill, and it is very unkind of you, when you told me I was to make friends with Maura White; and Kitty Varley is quite cross with me about it.’
‘I told you to be kind to Maura, but not to talk about such foolish things.’
‘I don’t see why they should be foolish. It is what we all must come to. Grown-up people do, as Lois says. I heard Aunt Ada going on ever so long about Beatrice Varley and that gentleman.’
‘It is just the disadvantage of that kind of school that girls talk that sort of undesirable stuff. Gillian said to herself; but curiosity, or interest in the Whites, prompted her to add, ‘What did she tell you?’
‘If you are so cross, I shan’t tell you. You hurt my head, I say.’
‘Then you should not have told me so much.’
Val laughed triumphantly, and called her sister Mrs. Curiosity, and at that moment Aunt Jane knocked at the door, and said Val was not to talk.
Val made an impatient face and began to whisper, but Gillian had too much proper feeling to allow this flat disobedience, and would not listen, much as she longed to do so. She heard her little sister rolling and tossing about a good deal, but made herself hard-hearted on principle, and acted sleep. On her own judgment, she would not waken the child in the morning, and Aunt Jane said she was quite right, it would be better to let Val have her sleep out, than send her to school fretful and half alive. ‘But you ought not to have let her talk last night.’
As usual, reproof was unpleasing, and silenced Gillian. She hoped to extract the rest of the story in the course of the day. But before breakfast was over Valetta rushed in with her hat on, having scrambled into her clothes in a hurry, and consuming her breakfast in great haste, for she had no notion either of losing her place in the class, or of missing the discussion of the entertainment with Kitty, from whom she had been so cruelly parted.