That story of your being expelled beats--Might a common man make so bold as to inquire where the whitening machine is, Miss ?" This was addressed to Jane, who had come up with some of the others.
Agatha expected to see Smilash presently discovered, for his disguise now seemed transparent; she wondered how the rest could be imposed on by it.

Two o'clock, striking just then, reminded her of the impending interview with her guardian.

A tremor shook her, and she felt a craving for some solitary hiding-place in which to await the summons.

But it was a point of honor with her to appear perfectly indifferent to her trouble, so she stayed with the girls, laughing and chatting as they watched Smilash intently marking out the courts and setting up the nets.
She made the others laugh too, for her hidden excitement, sharpened by irrepressible shootings of dread, stimulated her, and the romance of Smilash's disguise gave her a sensation of dreaming.

Her imagination was already busy upon a drama, of which she was the heroine and Smilash the hero, though, with the real man before her, she could not indulge herself by attributing to him quite as much gloomy grandeur of character as to a wholly ideal personage.