oman's quarrel. The weakest can take her own
part in the warfare of taunt and innuendo, better and more venomously
than could dervish, priest, or politician. But Eveena could no more
lower herself to the ordinary level of feminine malice than I could
have borne to hear her do so; and it was intolerable that one whose
sweet humility commanded respect from myself should submit to slight
or sneer from the lips and eyes of petulant girls. Eunane started as I
spoke, using that accent which gives its most peremptory force to the
Martial imperative. "Repeat aloud what you have chosen to say to
Eveena in my presence."

If the first to express the ill-will excited by Eveena's evident
influence, though exerted in their own behalf, it was less that Eunane
surpassed her companions in malice than that they fell short of her in
audacity. Her school-mates had found her their most daring leader in
mischief, the least reluctant scapegoat when mischief was to be
atoned. But she was cowed, partly perhaps by her first collision with
masculine authority, partly, I fear, by sheer dread of physical force
visibly greater than she had ever known by repute. Perhaps she was too
much frightened to obey. At any rate, it was from Eveena, despite her
pleading looks, that I extorted an answer. She yielded at last only to
that formal imperative which her conscience would not permit her to
disobey, and which for the first time I now employed in addressing
her.

"Eunane only repeated," Eveena said, with a reluctance so manifest
that one might have supposed her to be the offender, "a school-girl's
proverb:--

"'Ware the wrath that stands to cool:
Then the sandal shows the rule.'"

The smile that had accompanied the whisper--though not so much
suggestive of a woman's malignity as of a child's exultation in a
companion's disgrace--gave point and sting to the taunt. It is on
chance, I suppose, that the effect of such things depends. Had the
saying been thrown at any of Eunane's equals, I should probably have
been inclined to laugh, even if I felt it necessary to reprimand. But,
angered at a hint which placed Eveena on their own level, I forgot how
far the speaker's experience and inexperience alike palliated the
impertinence. That the insinuation shocked none of those around me was
evident. Theirs were not the looks of women, however young and
thoughtless, startled by an affront to their sex; but of children
amazed at a child's folly in provoking c