"Another thing," a girl of Elwell"s posse demanded; "why couldn"t I go to Rainham yesterday to have my photograph taken?"
("Break the camera," Burnett Minor murmured to the chilblain.)
"And just because somebody"d bagged my boots and I was five minutes late the other day----"
"Je m"en fiche pas mal----" Pigou began.
("Parly Angly, voo affectay feele," from Burnett Minor.)
"I should like to see one of the gardeners at home looking at us the way Priddy does----"
"Or Miss Harriet either for that matter--she"s only a sort of forewoman----"
"--applewoman----"
"--tomatoes----"
"--that"s all she is really----"
"--nothing else----"
Louie laughed outright. Another gurgle had come from the bathroom, and Earle reappeared. Her announcement that the water was now cold added to the general sense of wrong.
"Not even enough hot water!"
"Scarcely a drop, ever!----"
"Odious!"
"Then will somebody come into my cubicle and rub me--not you, B Minor."
("Just give a squint out of the window, Elwell.")
("It"s all right. Her lights are out. Lovey"s too.")
"Well, I _won"t_ have a cold bath, to please Lovey or anybody else!"
Nor did Louie want one. She had risen. She moved to the window that looked out over the courtyard yew--the window from which watch was kept to see when Miss Harriet and Mrs. Lovenant-Smith retired--and yawned. In the middle of her yawn she suddenly laughed again.
"Good gracious!" she thought. It was too amusing.
Suddenly Richenda Earle, who also was standing by the window, spoke to her. Evidently Richenda did not think she had been fairly treated by the meeting.
"Do _you_ think they ought to ask me to?" she complained.
Louie turned.
"To ask you to what?"
"To complain to Miss Harriet--me, the only Scholarship girl."
Louie shrugged her shoulders disdainfully. "Oh, they won"t complain to Miss Harriet!"
"No--but one doesn"t like to refuse things----" Earle said in injured tones.
Before Louie would have had time to reply to this, had she thought of replying to it, a diversion occurred. n.o.body had heard steps approaching, but all at once the door opened, and Authority, in the person, not of Miss Harriet, but of Mrs. Lovenant-Smith herself, stood looking in. The hubbub ceased as the boiling of a kettle ceases when cold water is poured in. Several of the conspirators rose to their feet; Burnett Minor, making no bones about it, bolted behind a box.
Great is even the look of Authority; it was almost a superfluity when Mrs. Lovenant-Smith asked in measured tones from the doorway: "What is the meaning of this?"
Already the tails of two dressing-gowns had vanished out of the other door.
"What is the meaning of this?" Mrs. Lovenant-Smith asked again.
Then she looked round to see on whom to fasten her displeasure.
Louie saw her look, and instantly fathomed its purpose. She and Richenda Earle stood by the window, as it were the dramatic centre of some Rembrandtesque composition to which all else was merely contributory. The Scholarship girl was going to get into a row. She, Louie, had lived for years among rows; and was leaving anyway on the morrow.
Before the "Miss Earle" had pa.s.sed Mrs. Lovenant-Smith"s lips Louie had stepped forward.
"We"ve been waiting for our baths," she said.
Perhaps already Mrs. Lovenant-Smith would have preferred Richenda Earle to Louie; there is expediency even in Authority; but the challenge, if it was that, was a public one. Mrs. Lovenant-Smith turned to Louie.
"Do you know what time it is?" she asked freezingly.
It pleased Louie to take Mrs. Lovenant-Smith"s question _au pied de la lettre_.
"I"m afraid my watch is in my cubicle. I could tell you in a moment,"
she said.
This the Lady-in-Charge saw fit to ignore. She drew her own watch from her belt.
"It is ten minutes past eleven," she said. "Students are not out of bed at ten minutes past eleven. Neither are candles burning. Miss Earle----"
But again Louie interposed. After all, it was rough on the Scholarship girl.
"Miss Earle came in only a moment ago to send us to bed," she affirmed, without a tremor.
"Then," said Mrs. Lovenant-Smith, turning to Louie, and perhaps feeling herself once more headed off, "you, Miss Causton, as a new student, are perhaps not yet familiar with the Rules. Be so good as to come to me at ten o"clock to-morrow morning and I will explain them to you."
Mrs. Lovenant-Smith did not make the discomfited rebels file out past her. She herself retired with dignity. Students do not linger in the box-room when it is made known that they are expected to go to bed at once.
But no sooner had the door closed on Mrs. Lovenant-Smith"s back than the pent-up general breath escaped again in a fluttering exhalation.
In it were awe, delight, homage.
"Oh, Causton!" somebody breathed. "You _are_ a brick!"
"_Isn"t_ she?"