“It is vegetarian hot-pot,” said Miss Schofield. “Would you like to try it?”
“I should love to,” said Ursula.
Her own dinner seemed coarse and ugly beside this savoury, clean dish.
“I’ve never eaten vegetarian things,” she said. “But I should think they can be good.”
“I’m not really a vegetarian,” said Maggie, “I don’t like to bring meat to school.”
“No,” said Ursula, “I don’t think I do either.”
And again her soul rang an answer to a new refinement, a new liberty. If all vegetarian things were as nice as this, she would be glad to escape the slight uncleanness of meat.
“How good!” she cried.
“Yes,” said Miss Schofield, and she proceeded to tell her the receipt. The two girls passed on to talk about themselves. Ursula told all about the High School, and about her matriculation, bragging a little. She felt so poor here, in this ugly place. Miss Schofield listened with brooding, handsome face, rather gloomy.
“Couldn’t you have got to some better place than this?” she asked at length.
“I didn’t know what it was like,” said Ursula, doubtfully.
“Ah!” said Miss Schofield, and she turned aside her head with a bitter motion.
“Is it as horrid as it seems?” asked Ursula, frowning lightly, in fear.
“It is,” said Miss Schofield, bitterly. “Ha!—it is hateful!”
Ursula’s heart sank, seeing even Miss Schofield in the deadly bondage.
“It is Mr. Harby,” said Maggie Schofield, breaking forth.
“I don’t think I could live again in the big room—Mr. Brunt’s voice and Mr. Harby—ah——”
She turned aside her head with a deep hurt. Some things she could not bear.
“Is Mr. Harby really horrid?” asked Ursula, venturing into her own dread.
“He!—why, he’s just a bully,” said Miss Schofield, raising her shamed dark eyes, that flamed with tortured contempt. “He’s not bad as long as you keep in with him, and refer to him, and do everything in his way—but—it’s all so mean! It’s just a question of fighting on both sides—and those great louts——”
She spoke with difficulty and with increased bitterness. She had evidently suffered. Her soul was raw with ignominy. Ursula suffered in response.
“But why is it so horrid?” she asked, helplessly.
“You can’t do anything,” said Miss Schofield. “He’s against you on one side and he sets the children against you on the other. The children are simply awful. You’ve got to make them do everything. Everything, everything has got to come out of you. Whatever they learn, you’ve got to force it into them—and that’s how it is.”