Quicksand
quickly in another, warmer tone: “I do mean it. Thanks, a thousand times, Margaret. I‘m really awfully grateful, but-you see, it‘s like this, I‘m not going to be late to my class. I‘m not going to be there at all.”
The visiting girl, standing in relief, like old walnut against the buff-colored wall, darted a quick glance at Helga. Plainly she was curious. But she only said formally: “Oh, then you are sick.” For something there was about Helga which discouraged questionings.
No, Helga wasn‘t sick. Not physically. She was merely disgusted. Fed up with Naxos. If that could be called sickness. The truth was that she, had made up her mind to leave. That very day. She could no longer abide being connected with a place of shame, lies, hypocrisy, cruelty, servility, and snobbishness. “It ought,” she concluded, “to be shut down by law.”
"But, Helga, you can‘t go now. Not in the middle of the term." The kindly Margaret was distressed.
31
