whole thing out, she
could not bear to have for a companion anyone who did not love her. She
was certain that Flora did not love her. Why? She couldn't say.
Moreover, she had caught the girl looking at her in a peculiar way at
times. Oh no!--it was not an evil look--it was an unusual expression
which one could not understand. And when one remembered that her father
was in prison shut up together with a lot of criminals and so on--it
made one uncomfortable. If the child had only tried to forget her
troubles! But she obviously was incapable or unwilling to do so. And
that was somewhat perverse--wasn't it? Upon the whole, she thought it
would be better perhaps--

Mrs Fyne assented hurriedly to the unspoken conclusion: "Oh certainly!
Certainly," wondering to herself what was to be done with Flora next;
but she was not very much surprised at the change in the old lady's view
of Flora de Barral. She almost understood it.

What came next was a German family, the continental acquaintances of the
wife of one of Fyne's colleagues in the Home Office. Flora of the
enigmatical glances was dispatched to them without much reflection. As
it was not considered absolutely necessary to take them into full
confidence, they neither expected the girl to be specially cheerful nor
were they discomposed unduly by the indescribable quality of her
glances. The German woman was quite ordinary; there were two boys to
look after; they were ordinary, too, I presume; and Flora, I understand,
was very attentive to them. If she taught them anything it must have
been by inspiration alone, for she certainly knew nothing of teaching.
But it was mostly "conversation" which was demanded from her. Flora de
Barral conversing with two small German boys, regularly, industriously,
conscientiously, in order to keep herself alive in the world which held
for her the past we know and the future of an even more undesirable
quality--seems to me a very fantastic combination. But I believe it was
not so bad. She was being, she wrote, mercifully drugged by her task.
She had learned to "converse" all day long, mechanically, absently, as
if in a trance. An uneasy trance it must have been! Her worst moments
were when off duty--alone in the evening, shut up in her own little
room, her dulled thoughts waking up slowly till she started into the
full consciousness of her position, like a person waking up in contact
with something venomous--a snake, for insta