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 capricious and irresponsible power.  The angry quickness with which I turned to Eunane received a double, though doubly unintentional, rebuke, equally illustrative of Martial ideas and usages.  The culprit cowered like a child expecting a brutal blow.  A gentle pressure on my left arm evinced the same fear in a quarter from which its expression wounded me deeply.  That pressure arrested not, as was intended, my hand, but my voice; and when I spoke the frightened girl looked up in surprise at its measured tones.

“Wrong, and wrong thrice over, Eunane.  It is for me to teach you the bad taste of bringing into your new home the ideas and language of school.  Meanwhile, in no case would you learn more of my rule than concerned your own fault.  Take in exchange for your proverb the kindliest I have learned in your language:—­

 “’Whispered warnings reach the heart;
   Veil the blush and spare the smart.’

“But, happily for you, your taunt had not truth enough to sting; and I can tell the story about which you are unduly curious as frankly as you please.—­Let me speak now, Eveena, that I may spare the need to speak again and in another tone.—­That Eveena seemed to have put us both in a false position only convinced me that she had a motive she knew would satisfy me as fully as herself.  When I learned what that motive was, I was greatly surprised at her unselfishness and courage.  If you threw me your veil to save me from drowning, how would you feel if my first words to you were:—­’No one must think I could not swim, therefore even the household must believe you, in unveiling, guilty of an unpardonable fault’?...  Answer me, Eunane.”

“I should let you sink next time,” she replied, with a pretty half-dubious sauciness, showing that her worst fears at least were relieved.

“Quite right; but you are less generous than Eveena.  To hide how I had acted on her advice, she would have had you suppose her guilty.  That you might not laugh at my authority, and ’find a dragon in the esve’s nest,’ she would have had me treat her as guilty.”

“But I deserved it.  A girl has no right to break the seal in the master’s absence,” interposed Eveena, much more distressed than gratified by the vindication to which she was so well entitled.