Free Faster! Faster! by E. M. Delafield

before,” Claudia observed.
    She looked pleased.
    â€œThe highest marks you can give for anything is ten, and the lowest, nought. Everybody to put down what they really think.”
    â€œWe don’t really all know each other anything like well enough for this,” Sal remarked.
    â€œFirst impressions are valuable,” Taffy retorted.
    She and Sal were always on excellent terms.
    â€œI suppose,” said Frances with simplicity, “that when the game is finished we shall all know each other much better.”
    â€œWe shall probably none of us be on speaking terms,” said Sal grimly.
    They wrote, pondered, frowned, glanced sideways at one another, and wrote again.
    When the papers had been gathered together and mixed in a heap, Claudia drew each one out and read it aloud. The totals were put down, and the final aggregate announced at the end.
    â€œSylvia comes off much the best!” cried Taffy disgustedly. “She gets highest number of marks for looks and common sense. Can you beat it!”
    â€œI got rather a lot for morality,” said Sylvia dejectedly.
    â€œSo did I,” said Mrs Ladislaw sadly.
    â€œSal got quantities of marks for brains and personality, and about one for morality.”
    â€œI should very much like to talk to the person who brought my average down by only giving me two marks for honesty,” cried Claudia gaily. “I consider that if I
have
one quality in the world——”
    â€œMother! I gave you
ten
for honesty,” cried Sylvia. “No one knows better than your childrenhow terribly honest you are. Almost ruthless, some people might say.”
    They all laughed, including Claudia.
    Then she grew more serious.
    â€œI think, as a matter of fact, that what Professor Quarrendon calls honesty of outlook isn’t quite the same as what Sylvia so prettily calls ruthlessness.” She turned to Quarrendon. “Is it?”
    â€œI meant,” he said in rather apologetic accents, “the—the contrary of self-deception. Knowing one’s own true motives and—and so on,” he concluded lamely.
    â€œI see,” Claudia nodded. “It’s important, of course. It’s partly a question of being sufficiently intelligent, isn’t it? Analysing one’s motives, I mean.”
    The door opened and Copper came in again.
    â€œGood God, hasn’t Taffy gone to bed yet?” he apostrophized his family. “Do you know what time it is?”
    The enquiry, not unnaturally, broke up the party.
(5)
    Claudia, tidying up the drawing-room before going upstairs, glanced once more at the strip of paper that bore her name at the head.
    She scrutinized carefully the objectionable figure 2 under the heading Honesty.
    It rankled queerly in her mind.
    She
was
extraordinarily candid, both with herself and with other people. Nobody, surely, who was cowardly about facing facts would so freelypermit her children to dissect her in her own presence? Sal, who didn’t really like her, might have put that 2—but she knew Sal’s small, clear figures, and the ladylike slope of Frances Ladislaw. This was an unfamiliar 2—sprawling, and curly. Was it Andrew Quarrendon’s?
    She took the question up to bed with her.
V
(1)
    Saturday was a cloudless day, very hot and steamy after rain the previous evening, and the two girls were anxious to go to the sea and bathe.
    â€œWe could all go this afternoon,” said Claudia. “This morning I must work. An enormous pile of stuff has turned up from the office to be typed.”
    â€œWhat is it?” asked Sal. “Cambridge?”
    â€œYes.”
    Claudia sighed, and turned to Andrew Quar-rendon.
    â€œA Cambridge don keeps us busy with some very intricate stuff, all Greek and Hebrew quotations, that’s rather beyond the average typing bureau. We advertise a special department for dealing with that kind of thing.”
    â€œWhy isn’t the special