After
that time she used to ask occasional carefully considered questions
of Dowson and Mademoiselle Valle, which puzzled them by their
vagueness. The two women were mutually troubled by a moody habit
she developed of sitting absorbed in her own thoughts, and with
a concentrated little frown drawing her brows together. They did
not know that she was silently planning a subtle cross examination
of them both, whose form would be such that neither of them could
suspect it of being anything but innocent. She felt that she was
growing cunning and deceitful, but she did not care very much.
She possessed a clever and determined, though very young brain.
She loved both Dowson and Mademoiselle, but she must find out
about things for herself, and she was not going to harm or trouble
them. They would never know she had found out: Whatsoever she
discovered, she would keep to herself.
But one does not remain a baby long, and one is a little girl
only a few years, and, even during the few years, one is growing
and hearing and seeing all the time. After that, one is beginning
to be a rather big girl and one has seen books and newspapers, and
overheard scraps of things from servants. If one is brought up
in a convent and allowed to read nothing but literature selected
by nuns, a degree of aloofness from knowledge may be counted
upon--though even convent schools, it is said, encounter their
difficulties in perfect discipline.
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