Page:The Yellow Book - 08.djvu/213

He smiled and glanced at her with more interest. Her identity was beginning to puzzle him.

"Going to business?" he asked tentatively.

"Well, yes, I suppose so. At least, I am going to teach three children all sorts of things they don't want to learn a bit."

"How awfully clever of you!"

The little obvious remark made her laugh. In spite of the humble brown dress that did not suit her, she looked very pretty when she threw back her head and laughed.

"That is because you have never taught," she said; "to be a really good teacher you must systematically forget quite half of what you do know. For instance, I can teach German better than anything else in the world, because I know less about it. Perhaps that is why I always won the German prizes at school," she added reflectively.

"You are very paradoxical—or very cynical, which is it?" asked her neighbour, smiling.

"Oh, I don't know. Am I? But did you ever try to teach?"

"Not I. Gives one the hump, doesn't it? I should just whack the little beasts when they didn't work. Don't you feel like that sometimes?"

"Clearly you never tried to teach," she said, and laughed again.

"Those are lucky pupils of yours," he observed.

"Why?" she asked abruptly, and flashed a stern look at him sideways.

"Oh, because you—seem right on it, don't you know," he answered hastily. The adroitness of his answer pleased her, and she put him down as a gentleman, and felt justified in going a little further.

"I like