Part 49 (1/2)
”Oh no--not in a month. Prepare me a hundred lines of the 'Odyssey,'
Book VI.! Next week I shall have some time. This first week is always a drive. Miss Nora says she'll go on again.”
”Does she? She seems so--so busy.”
”Ah, yes--she's got some work for the University Press. Plucky little thing! But she mustn't overdo it.”
Connie dropped the subject. These conferences in the study, which had gone on all day, had nothing to do with Nora's work for the Press--that she was certain of. But she only said--holding out her hands, with the free gesture that was natural to her--
”I wish some one would give me the chance of 'overdoing it'! Do set me to work--hard work! The sun never s.h.i.+nes here.”
Her eyes wandered petulantly to the rainy sky outside, and the high-walled college opposite.
”Southerner! Wait till you see it s.h.i.+ning on the Virginia creeper in our garden quad. Oxford is a dream in October!--just for a week or two, till the leaves fall. November is dreary, I admit. All the same--try and be happy!”
He looked at her gravely and tenderly. She coloured a little as she withdrew her hands.
”Happy? That doesn't matter--does it? But perhaps for a change--one might try--”
”Try what?”
”Well!”--she laughed, but he thought there were tears in her eyes--”to do something--for somebody--occasionally.”
”Ask Mrs. Mulholland! She has a genius for that kind of thing. Teach some of her orphans!”
”I couldn't! They'd find me out.”
Sorell, rather puzzled, suggested that she might become a Home Student like Nora, and go in for a Literature or Modern History Certificate.
Connie, who was now sitting moodily over a grate with no fire in it, with her chin in her hands, only shook her head.
”I don't know anything--I never learnt anything. And everybody here's so appallingly clever!”
Then she declared that she would go and have tea with the Master of Beaumont, and ask his advice. ”He told me to learn something”--the tone was one of depression, pa.s.sing into rebellion--”but I don't want to learn anything!--I want to do something!”
Sorell laughed at her.
”Learning is doing!”
”That's what Oxford people think,” she said defiantly. ”I don't agree with them.”
”What do you mean by 'doing'?”
Connie poked an imaginary fire.
”Making myself happy”--she said slowly, ”and--and a few other people!”
Sorell laughed again. Then rising to take his leave, he stooped over her.
”Make me happy by undoing that stroke of yours at Boar's Hill!”