After the meeting with Captain Fanshawe in the Park, Claire’s relationship with Mary Rhodes sensibly improved.  In the first place, her own happiness made her softer and more lenient in her judgment, for she was deeply, intensely happy, with a happiness which all her reasonings were powerless to destroy.

“My dear, what nonsense!” she preached to herself in elderly remonstrating fashion.  “You met the man, and he was pleased to see you-he seemed quite anxious to meet you again.  Perfectly natural!  Pray don’t imagine any special meaning in that!  You looked quite an attractive little girl in your pretty blue dress, and men like to talk to attractive little girls.  I dare say he says just the same to dozens of girls!” So spake the inner voice, but spoke in vain.  The best things of life are beyond reasoning.  As in religion reason leads us, as it were, to the very edge of the rock of proven fact, then faith takes wing, and soars above the things of earth into the great silence where the soul communes with God, so in love there comes to the heart a sweetness, a certainty, which no reasoning can shake.  As Erskine’s eyes had looked into hers in those moments of farewell, Claire had realised that between this man and herself there existed a bond which was stronger than spoken word.

So far as she could foresee, they were hopelessly divided by the circumstances of life, but in the first dawn of love no lover troubles himself about what the future may bring; the sweetness of the present is all-sufficient.  Claire was happy, and longed for every one else to be as happy as herself.  Moreover, her suspicions concerning Major Carew had been lulled to rest by Erskine’s favourable pronouncement.  Personally she did not like him, but this was, after all, a matter of taste; she could not approve his actions, but conceivably there might be explanations of which she was unaware.  Her manner to Cecil regained its old spontaneous friendliness, and Cecil responded with almost pathetic readiness.  In her ungracious way she had grown fond of her pretty, kindly companion, and had missed the atmosphere of home which her presence had given to the saffron parlour.  As they sat over their simple supper, she would study Claire’s face with a questioning glance, and one night the question found vent in words.

“You look mightily pleased with yourself, young woman!  Your eyes are sparkling as if you were having a firework exhibition on your own account.  I never saw a school-mistress look so perky at the end of the summer term!  Look as if you’d come into a fortune!”

“Wish I had!” sighed Claire, thankful to switch the conversation on to a safe topic.  “It would come in most usefully at the moment.  What are you going to do for the summer hols, Cecil?  Is there any possibility of-”

“No,” Cecil said shortly.  “And the regiment is going into camp, so he will be out of town.  I’m not bothering my head about holidays-quite enough to do with this wretched Matric.  The Head is keen to make a good show this year, for the Dulwich School beat us last year, and, as usual, all the responsibility and all the blame is put on the poor mistresses.  You can’t make girls work if they don’t want, you can’t cram their brains when they’ve no brains to cram; but those wretched examiners send a record of all the marks, so you can see exactly where they fall short.  Woe betide the mistress who is responsible for that branch!  I wouldn’t mind prophesying that if the German doesn’t come out better than last year, Fräulein will be packed off.  I wouldn’t be too sure of myself.  I’ve done all right so far, but the Head is not as devoted to me as she might be.  I don’t think she’d be sorry to have an excuse for getting rid of me.  That’s one of the delightful aspects of our position-we are absolutely at the mercy of a woman who, from sheer force of circumstances, becomes more of an autocrat every year.  The Committee listen to her, and accept every word she says; the staff know better than to dispute a single order.  We’d stand on our head in rows if she made it a rule!  The pupils scuttle like rabbits when they see her coming, and cheer themselves hoarse every time she speaks.  No human woman can live in that atmosphere for years and keep a cool head!”

“She’s rather a dear, though, all the same!” Claire said loyally.  She had been hurt by the lack of personal interest which Miss Farnborough showed in the different members of her staff, but she was unwilling to brand her as a heartless tyrant.  “Anyway,” she added hastily, “you are not satisfied here.  If you were going on teaching I should have thought you’d be glad of a change.  It would be easy to get another school.”

Mary Rhodes looked at her; a long eloquent glance.

“With a good testimonial-yes!  Without a good testimonial-no!  A testimonial for twelve years’ work depends on one woman, remember-on her prejudice or good nature, on the mood in which she happens to be on one particular day.  It might read quite differently because she happened to have a chill on her liver.”

“My dear! there is a sense of justice!  There is such a thing as honesty.”

“My dear, I agree.  Even so, would you dare to say that the wording of a testimonial would be unaffected by the writer’s mood?”

“Surely twelve years in one school-”

“No, it wouldn’t!  Not necessarily. `Miss Rhodes has been English Mistress at Saint Cuthbert’s for twelve years.  Of late has been erratic in temper.  Health uncertain.  Examination records less satisfactory.’  Well!  If you represented another school, would you engage Miss Rhodes?”

Claire was silent.  For the first time she realised the danger of this single-handed power.  It meant-what might it not mean?  It might mean that the mistress who was unfortunate enough to incur the dislike of her chief, might never be able to procure another post!  She might be efficient, she might be hard-working; given congenial surroundings she might develop into a treasure untold, yet just because of a depreciating phrase in the wording of a testimonial, no chance would be vouchsafed.  No doubt the vast majority of head mistresses were women of judgment, possessing a keen sense of justice and responsibility, yet the fact remained that a hasty impulse, a little access of temper in penning those all-important lines, might mean the end of a career, might mean poverty, might mean ruin!

Claire shivered, looked across the table at the thin, fretted face and made a hesitating appeal-

“Cecil dear, I know you are a good teacher.  I just love to hear you talking over your lessons, but you are irritable!  One of my girls was crying the other day.  You had given so much homework, and she didn’t understand what was to be done, and said she daren’t ask.  You had been `so cross!’ I made a guess at what you wanted, and by good chance I was right; but if I’d been wrong, the poor thing would have been in disgrace, and honestly it wasn’t her fault!  She was willing enough.”

“Oh, that imbecile Gladys Brown!  I know what you mean.  I’d explained it a hundred times.  If she’d the brains of a cow she’d have understood.  No wonder I was cross.  I should have been a saint if I wasn’t, and no one can be a saint in the summer term.  Did-did any one else see her cry?”

“I think not.  No, I managed to comfort her; but if Miss Farnborough had happened to come in just at that moment-”

Cecil shrugged and turned the subject, but she took the hint, to the benefit of her pupils during the next few weeks.

July came in, and with it a spell of unbearable heat.  In country places and by the seashore there was space and air, and clean fragrant surroundings; but over London hung a misty pall, and not a branch of the dusty trees quivered to the movement of a passing breeze.  It was a thunderous, unnatural heat which sapped every scrap of vitality, and made every movement a dread.

Claire was horrified at the effect of this heat wave on Sophie Blake.  In superficial fashion she had always believed that rheumatism must be better in hot weather; but, according to the specialist, such heat as this was more trying than damp or cold, and Sophie’s stiffness increased with alarming suddenness.

There came a day when by no effort of will could she get through her classes, when sheer necessity drove her to do the thing she had dreaded most of all-inform the Head that she could not go on with her work.

Miss Farnborough was seated in her private room, and listened with grave attention to what the Games mistress had to say.  Her forehead puckered in surprise as she noted Sophie’s halting gait, and the while she listened, her keen brain was diving back into the past, collecting impressions.  She had seen less than usual of Miss Blake during the term; once or twice she had received the impression that Miss Blake avoided her approach; Miss Blake had been looking pale.  She waited until Sophie had finished speaking, her hands folded on her knee, her penetrating eye fixed on the girl’s face.  Then she spoke-

“I am sorry to hear this, Miss Blake.  Your work has been excellent hitherto, but rheumatism is a serious handicap.  You say that this heat is responsible for the present attack?  Am I to understand that it is a first attack-that you have had no threatening before?”

“I have been rheumatic all winter, more or less.  Before the Easter holidays it was pretty bad.  I began to feel stiff.”

Miss Farnborough repeated the word gravely.

“Stiff!  That was bad; that was very bad!  How could you take your classes if you were feeling stiff?”

“I managed somehow!” Sophie said.

For a moment she had imagined that the Head Mistress’s concern had been on her account; she believed it no longer when she saw the flash of indignation which lighted the grey eyes.

“Managed-somehow?  And you went on in that fashion-you were content to go on!”

“No.  I was not content.  I was very far from content.  I suffered horrible pain.  I went to a specialist and paid him two guineas for his advice.  Since then I have paid twenty pounds for treatment.”

On Miss Farnborough’s face the disapproval grew more and more pronounced.

“Miss Blake, I am afraid you have not been quite straightforward in this matter.  It appears that you have been ill for months, with an illness which must necessarily have interfered with your work, and this is the first time I hear about it.  I am Head Mistress of this school; if anything is wrong with a member of the staff, it is her first duty to come to me.  You tell me now that you have been ill for three months, since before the last holidays, and acknowledge that you can go on no longer.”

“In ten days we break up.  I ask you to allow me ten extra days.  The weather is so hot that the girls would be thankful to escape the exercises.  By the end of the holidays I hope to be quite better.”

“The Easter holidays do not seem to have done you much good,” Miss Farnborough said cruelly.  Then, seeing the girl flush, she added, “Of course you shall have your ten days.  I can see that you are unfit for work, and we must manage without you till the end of the term.  I am very sorry for you, Miss Blake; very sorry, indeed.  It is very trying and upsetting and-and expensive into the bargain.  Twenty pounds, did you say?  That is surely a great deal!  Have you tried the shilling bottles of gout and rheumatic pills?  I have been told they are quite excellent.  But I must repeat that you have been wrong in not coming to me sooner.  As a pure matter of honesty, do you think that you were justified in continuing to take classes for which you were unfit?”

The tears started to Sophie’s eyes; she lowered her lids to hide them from sight.

“The girls did not suffer,” she said deeply.  “I did the suffering!”

Miss Farnborough moved impatiently.  She was intensely practical and matter-of-fact, and with all her heart hated any approach to sentiment.

“You suffered because you were unfit,” she repeated coldly, “and your obvious duty was to come to me.  You must have known that under the circumstances I should not have wished you to continue the classes!”

Sophie was silent for a moment, then she said very quietly, very deliberately-

“Yes, I did know; but I also knew that if I could nerve myself to bear the pain and the fatigue, I could train the girls as well as ever, and I knew, too, that if you sent me away in the middle of term you would be less likely to take me back.  It means everything to me, you see.  What would happen to me if I were permanently invalided-without a pension- at thirty-one?”

“You have been paid a good salary, Miss Blake-an exceptionally good salary-because it is realised that your work is especially wearing.  You ought to have saved-”

“If I had had no home claims I might have been able to save one or two hundred pounds-not a very big life provision!  As it happens, however, I have given thirty pounds a year towards the education of a young sister, and it has been impossible to save at all.”

“But now, of course, your sister will help you,” Miss Farnborough said, and turned briskly to another topic.  “You said that you have been to a specialist?  Will you give me his address?  I should like to communicate with him direct.  You understand, Miss Blake, that if this stiffness continues, it will be impossible for you to continue your duties here?”

“Quite impossible,” faltered Sophie, in low tones.

Miss Farnborough pushed back her chair, and rose to her feet.

“But one hopes, of course, that all may go well.  I have never had any complaint to make with respect to your work.  You have been very successful, very popular with the girls.  I should be sorry to lose you.  Be sure to let me know how you go on.  Perhaps I had better be guided by Dr Blank.  I should try the pills, I think; they are worth trying.  And avoid the sea; sea air is bad for rheumatism.  Try some high inland place.  We had better say good-bye, now, I suppose, as you will not come back after to-night.  Good-bye, my dear.  Let me hear soon.  All good wishes for your recovery.”

Sophie left the room, and made her way upstairs to the Staff-Room.  She moved very slowly, partly because every movement was an effort, partly because the familiar objects on which her eyes rested became suddenly instinct with new interest.  For ten long working years she had passed them daily with indifference, but this afternoon it was borne in upon her that she would never see them again, and the conviction brought with it a bitter pang.  After all, they had been happy years, spent in a bustle of youthful life and energy, in an atmosphere of affection, too, for the girls were warm-hearted, and the “Gym. mistress” had been universally popular.  Even as the thought passed through Sophie’s mind, one of her special adorers appeared suddenly at the far end of the corridor and hurried forward to meet her.

“Miss Blake!  Darling!  You look so white.  Are you faint?  Take my arm; lean on me.  Were you going to lie down?”

“I’m going to the Staff-Room.  I can manage myself; but, Gladys, find Miss Gifford, and ask her to come to me as soon as she is free.  Tell her I’m not well.  You’re a dear girl, Gladys.  Thank you for being so kind to me all these years.”

Gladys rolled adoring blue eyes, and sped on her mission.  The next morning she realised that those thanks had been darling Miss Blake’s farewell, and shed bitter tears; but for the moment she was filled with complaisance.

Claire appeared in due time, heard what had happened, and helped Sophie to collect her various small belongings.  The other teachers had already dispersed, so the ordeal of leave-taking was avoided.

“You can explain when you meet them next term!” said Claire.

“I can write my good-byes,” corrected Sophie.  She blinked away a few tears and said piteously, “Not much chance for me if she consults Dr Blank!  He’s as much discouraged as I am myself.  What do you suppose he will advise now?  I suppose I’ll have to see him to-morrow.”

“And lie awake all to-night, wondering what he will say!  We’ll do better than that-we’ll call this very afternoon.  If he is in, I’m sure he will see us, and a day saved is a day gained.  I’ll get a taxi.”

“Another taxi!  I’m ruining you, Claire.  How I do hate sponging on other people!”

“Wouldn’t you do it for me, if things were reversed?”

“Of course I should, but it’s so much more agreeable to help than to be helped.  It’s ignoble, I suppose, but I do hate to feel grateful!”

“Well!  No one could by any possibility call you gracious, my dear.  Is that any consolation?” cried Claire mischievously, and Sophie was surprised into the travesty of a smile.

Dr Blank was at home, and listened to what Sophie had to tell him with grave attention.  He expressed satisfaction to hear that her holidays had begun, but when questioned as to his probable report to Miss Farnborough, had no consolation to offer.

“I am afraid I must tell you honestly that you are not fit for the work.  Of course, it is quite possible that there may be a great improvement by September, but, even so, you would be retarding your recovery by going on with such exhausting work.  You must try to find something lighter.”

Sophie laughed, and her laugh was not good to hear.

Claire said firmly-

“She shall find it!  I will find it for her.  There’s no need to worry about September.  What we want to know is what she is to do now?-to-morrow-for the rest of the holidays?”

“I can’t afford any more injections!  They’ve done me no good, and they cost too much.  I can’t afford any more treatments.  I can only take medicines.  If you will give me some medicines-”

Dr Blank sat silent; tapping his desk with noiseless fingers; staring thoughtfully across the room.  It was evident that he had a proposition to make; evident also that he doubted its reception.

“The best thing under the circumstances-the wisest thing,” he said slowly at last, “would be for you to go into hospital as an ordinary patient.  I could get you a bed in one of my own wards, where I could look after you myself, in consultation with the first men in town.  You could have massage, electricity, radium, heat baths, every appliance that could possibly be of use, and you could stay on long enough to give them a chance.  It would be an ordinary ward, remember, an ordinary bed in an ordinary ward, and your neighbours would not be up to Newnham standard!  You would be awakened at five in the morning, and settled for the night at eight.  You would have to obey rules, which would seem to you unnecessary and tiresome.  You would be, I am afraid, profoundly bored.  On the other hand, you would have every attention that skill and science can devise.  You would not have to pay a penny, and you would have a better chance than a duchess in a ducal palace.  Think it over, and let me know!  If you decide to go, I’ll manage the rest.  Take a day-a couple of days.”

“I won’t take two minutes, thank you!  I’ll decide now.  I’ll go, of course, and thank you very much!”

Dr Blank beamed with satisfaction.

“Sensible girl!  Sensible girl!  That’s right!  That’s right!  That’s very good!  You are doing the right thing, and we’ll all do our best for you, and your friend here will come to see you and help to make the time pass.  Interesting study, you know; valuable opportunity of studying character if you look at it in that light!  Why not turn it into literary capital? `Sketches from a Hospital Bed,’ `My Neighbours in B Ward,’ might make an uncommonly good series.  Who knows?  We may have you turning out quite a literary star!”

Sophie smiled faintly, being one of the people who would rather walk five miles than write the shortest letter.  Many unexpected things happen in this world, but it was certain that her own rise to literary eminence would never swell the number!  But she knew that Dr Blank was trying to cheer her, so she kept that certainty to herself.

The two girls made their way back to Sophie’s lodgings, and discussed the situation over the ever-comforting tea.

“I shall have to give my landlady notice,” Sophie said, looking wistfully round the little room which had been so truly a home.  “If I’m to be in hospital for many weeks, it’s folly to go on paying the rent; and in any case I can’t afford so much now.  One can’t have doctor’s bills, and other luxuries as well.  What shall I have to take into hospital?  Will they allow me to wear my own things?  I don’t think I could get better in a calico night-dress!  Pretty frills and a blue ribbon bow are as good as a tonic, but will the authorities permit?  Have you ever seen ribbon bows in a hospital bed?”

“I haven’t had much experience, but I should think they would be encouraged, as a ward decoration!  I hope so, I’m sure, for I mean to present you with a duck of a dressing-jacket!”

“Oh, nothing more, Claire; don’t give me anything more.  I shall never be able to pay you back,” cried Sophie; then, in a voice of poignant suffering, she cried sharply, “Oh, Claire, my little sister! What is to become of my little sister?  If I am not able to help, if I need to be helped myself, her education will be interrupted, for it will be impossible to go on paying.  Oh, it’s too hard-too dreadful!  Everything seems so hopeless and black!”

“Yes, it does.  The way seems blocked.  One can’t see a step ahead. Man’s extremity, Sophie!” cried Claire deeply-“Man’s extremity;” and at that a gleam of light came into Sophie’s eyes.

“Yes, yes!  That’s just what it is.  Thanks for reminding me. God’s opportunity!” Sophie leant back in her chair, staring dreamily into space, till presently something of the old bright look came back to her face.  “And that,” she said softly, “that’s the kind of help it is sweet to accept!”