Quicksand
goodly share of envious admiration, Helga Crane didn‘t know, couldn‘t tell. But there was, she knew, something else. Happiness, she supposed. Whatever that might be. What, exactly, she wondered, was happiness. Very positively she wanted it. Yet her conception of it had no tangibility. She couldn‘t define it, isolate it, and contemplate it as she could some other abstract things. Hatred, for instance. Or kindness.
The strident ringing of a bell somewhere in the building brought back the fierce resentment of the night. It crystallized her wavering determination.
From long habit her biscuit-coloured feet had slipped mechanically out from under the covers at the bell‘s first unkind jangle. Leisurely she drew them back and her cold anger vanished as she decided that, now, it didn‘t at all matter if she failed to appear at the monotonous distasteful breakfast which was provided for her by the school as part of her wages.
24
