Part 38 (1/2)

The other with a rough, scrambling sprawl, got herself to her knees and sat up, rubbing the tears away from her eyes with the backs of her hands, and drawing long, quivering breaths. Her lips were swollen, her cheeks fiery and glazed.

Marise was touched, and putting out her arms drew the other into them.

”Here, you must let me help you get used to things. _I've_ been homesick, too.”

The girl tried to speak, was on the point of bursting into tears again, struggled wildly to get the better of her excitement and emotion, and finally brought out in a strangled voice, ”I'm not _homesick_! I _hate_ my home! I wouldn't go back theah for _any_thing!”

The words in themselves were sufficiently astonis.h.i.+ng to Marise, and the raging accent with which they were cast out made them even more disconcerting. She felt that the little quivering body in her arms was clinging desperately to her, and sat silent, holding the unhappy child close, because she did not know what else to do with her.

Presently, however, she ventured to ask, ”Where is your home?”

”It _was_ in Arkansas,” said the other, in a m.u.f.fled, defiant tone. ”It isn't anywheah now. It's heah.”

Marise not being very intimately acquainted with the shades and phases of certain American prejudices, saw nothing peculiar in having one's home in Arkansas. Why not?

Apparently some hint of this reached the other, for after a moment of silent, expectant tension, she lifted her face from Marise's shoulder and looked up searchingly into her face. How pretty she must be, thought Marise, when she hadn't been crying. She must look like a pink lily in the midst of the dark-skinned, dark-haired, city-sallow little girls of her cla.s.s.

”Have you any of your family here in Paris with you?” she asked now.

”I haven't any family left, only some lawyers and guardians and things,”

said the other. She spoke as though she were glad of it, Marise thought, so that she suppressed the ”_oh!_” of sympathy which she was on the point of uttering. What a strange little thing!

The strange little thing now looked up at her. ”Do you know what I was crying for just now?” she said. Marise could not understand why she asked this in an accusing tone of blame.

”No!” said Marise, as utterly at a loss as ever in her life. ”How could I?”

”Because I hate myself so, because I hate my looks and my clothes and _every_thing!” the other burst out pa.s.sionately, ”I feel like po' white trash. They had plenty of money! Why didn't they send me here befoah?”

”_Before!_” cried Marise. ”Why, you're only a child now.”

”I'm almost as old as you are,” said the other. ”I'm seventeen and you're eighteen.”

She flung it out like a grievance.

”Eh _bien_!” cried Marise in great astonishment. She had not thought the other girl over fourteen.

She said now, sitting up straight and looking wistfully at Marise, ”_Will_ you be friends? You came of your own accord to be nice to me.

Tell me about things. _Everything!_ I want so like sin to know! I'll do anything to learn.”

”Know what?” asked Marise, bewildered, looking about her, as if she might catch a glimpse of the things the other wanted to know.

”What they all know oveh heah ... everything _you_ know.”

Marise drew back with an abrupt gesture, ”No, _indeed_!” she cried, her face darkening, the words leaping out before she could stop them.

”Oh, I don't mean your secrets. I don't care about that. And I don't mean the way you play the piano, although I know some of the girls are envious of that. And I'd despise to have to study as hard as you-all in the upper cla.s.ses do. I mean the right way to sit down and hold your hands and speak and weah clothes.”

Marise began to laugh, ”_I_ don't know how to wear clothes. What do you want anyhow? You're prettier than any girl in the school, and you are wearing a dress that cost more than anybody's else, and finer shoes than you could buy in all Paris.”

”But they're not right,” the girl said petulantly, ”or else I don't _weah_ them right, or something! I hate them! I have lots of money, but I don't know how to buy what I want.” She flung herself again on Marise, holding her closely, ”Help me!” she begged, ”help me buy what I want.”