said Lalage. "That's what the prize is for, the best
insult."

"But this seems to me to be about an insult applied by the author to
Miss Battersby. I couldn't conscientiously go in for a competition in
which I should represent myself as doing a thing of that sort."

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Lalage. "I didn't insult
her. She insulted me."

"Come now, Lalage, honour bright! That smile of yours! How would you
like any one to make you ten times worse by smiling blandly at you when
you happened to be stamping about the floor crimson in the face and
shrieking----"

"I wouldn't. I don't use words of that sort even when I'm angry."

"It might be better if you did. A frank outburst of that kind is at
times less culpable than a balmy smile. I have a much greater respect
and liking for the person who says plainly what she means than----"

"She didn't. She wouldn't think it ladylike." "Didn't what?"

"Didn't say straight out what she meant."

"She can't have meant more," I said. "After all, we must be reasonable.
There isn't any more that any one could mean."

"You're very stupid," said Lalage. "I keep on telling you she didn't say
it. She's far too great a hypocrite."

"Do you mean to say that she didn't stamp about the floor and say----"

I hesitated. I have been very carefully brought up and I am a
churchwarden. Besides, there is a Latin tag which Canon Beresford, who
has a taste for tags, quotes occasionally, about the great reverence due
to boys. Obviously a much greater reverence must be due to girls. I
did not want my conscience to have an opportunity for reproaching me.
Therefore I hesitated when it came to the point of saying out loud a
word which Lelage ought certainly not to hear.

She came to my rescue and finished my sentence for me in a way which
got me out of my difficulty. Very likely she felt that she ought not to
corrupt me.

"That word," she said.

"Thanks! We'll put it that way. Am I to understand that she didn't say
that word?"

"Certainly not," said Lalage. "She couldn't if she tried. I should--I
really think I should quite like her if she did."

I felt that this was as far as I was at all likely to get in bringing
Lalage to a better frame of mind. Her attitude toward her governess was
very far indeed from that enjoined in the Church Catechism, but I lacked
the courage to tell her so. Nor do I think I should have effected much
even if I had been as brave in rebuke as