The Rainbow

She knew if she let go the boy he would dash to the door.

Already he had run home once out of her class. So she snatched

her cane from the desk, and brought it down on him. He was

writhing and kicking. She saw his face beneath her, white, with

eyes like the eyes of a fish, stony, yet full of hate and

horrible fear. And she loathed him, the hideous writhing thing

that was nearly too much for her. In horror lest he should

overcome her, and yet at the heart quite calm, she brought down

the cane again and again, whilst he struggled making

inarticulate noises, and lunging vicious kicks at her. With one

hand she managed to hold him, and now and then the cane came

down on him. He writhed, like a mad thing. But the pain of the

strokes cut through his writhing, vicious, coward's courage, bit

deeper, till at last, with a long whimper that became a yell, he

went limp. She let him go, and he rushed at her, his teeth and

eyes glinting. There was a second of agonized terror in her

heart: he was a beast thing. Then she caught him, and the cane

came down on him. A few times, madly, in a frenzy, he lunged and

writhed, to kick her. But again the cane broke him, he sank with

a howling yell on the floor, and like a beaten beast lay there

yelling.

Mr. Harby had rushed up towards the end of this

performance.

"What's the matter?" he roared.

Ursula felt as if something were going to break in her.

"I've thrashed him," she said, her breast heaving, forcing

out the words on the last breath. The headmaster stood choked

with rage, helpless. She looked at the writhing, howling figure

on the floor.

"Get up," she said. The thing writhed away from her. She took

a step forward. She had realized the presence of the headmaster

for one second, and then she was oblivious of it again.

"Get up," she said. And with a little dart the boy was on his

feet. His yelling dropped to a mad blubber. He had been in a

frenzy.

"Go and stand by the radiator," she said.

As if mechanically, blubbering, he went.

The headmaster stood robbed of movement or speech. His face

was yellow, his hands twitched convulsively. But Ursula stood

stiff not far from him. Nothing could touch her now: she was

beyond Mr. Harby. She was as if violated to death.

The headmaster muttered something, turned, and went down the

room, whence, from the far end, he was heard roaring in a mad

rage at his own class.

The boy blubbered wildly by the radiator. Ursula looked at

the class. There were fifty pale, still faces watching her, a

hundred round eyes fixed on her in an attentive, expressionless

stare.