III

Then followed an invitation to tea from Mary's mother. Barbara,
preparing for the event, suffered her hair to be brushed, choked with
strange half-sweet, half-terrible suffocation that comes from
anticipated glories: half-sweet because things will, at their worst, be
wonderful; half-terrible because we know that they will not be so good
as we hope.

Barbara, washed paler than ever, in a white frock with pink bows, was
conducted by Miss Letts. She choked with terror in the strange hall,
where she was received with great splendour by Mary. The schoolroom was
large and fine and bright, finer far than Barbara's room, swamped by the
waters of religion and politics. Barbara could only gulp and gulp, and
feel still at her throat that half-sweet, half-terrible suffocation.
Within her little body her heart, so huge and violent, was pounding.

"A very nice room indeed," said Miss Letts, more friendly now to the
optimist because she was leaving in a day or two, and could not,
therefore, at the moment be considered a success. Her failure balanced
her plumpness.

Here, at any rate, was the beginning of a great friendship between
Barbara Flint and Mary Adams. The character of Mary Adams was admittedly
a difficult one to explore; her mother, a cloud of nurses and a company
of governesses had been baffled completely by its dark caverns and
recesses. One clue, beyond question, was selfishness; but this quality,
by the very obviousness of it, may tempt us to believe that that is all.