CHAPTER I

The school secretary pattered down the long corridor and turned into a class-room.

The room was a big one. There were old-fashioned casement windows and distempered walls; the modern desks, ranged in double rows, were small and shallow, scarred, and incredibly inky. In the window-seats stood an over-populous fish-bowl, two trays of silkworms, and a row of experimental jam-pots. There were pictures on the walls—The Infant Samuel was paired with Cherry Ripe, and Alfred, in the costume of Robin Hood, conscientiously ignored a neat row of halfpenny buns. The form was obviously a low one.

Through the opening door came the hive-like hum of a school at work, but the room was empty, save for a mistress sitting at the raised desk, idle, hands folded, ominously patient. A thin woman, undeveloped, sallow-skinned, with a sensitive mouth, and eyes that were bold and shining.

They narrowed curiously at sight of the new-comer, but she was greeted with sufficient courtesy.

Yes, Miss Vigers?

Henrietta Vigers was spare, precise, with pale, twitching eyes and a high voice. Her manner was self-sufficient, her speech deliberate and unnecessarily correct: her effect was the colourless obstinacy of an elderly mule. She stared about her inquisitively.

Miss Hartill, I am looking for Milly Fiske. Her mother has telephoned—— Where is the class? I can’t be mistaken. It’s a quarter to one. You take the Lower Third from twelve-fifteen, don’t you?

Yes, said Clare Hartill.

Well, but—where is it? The secretary frowned suspiciously. She was instinctively hostile to what she did not understand.

I don’t know, said Clare sweetly.

Henrietta gaped. Clare, justly annoyed as she was, could not but be grateful to the occasion for providing her with amusement. She enjoyed baiting Henrietta.

I should have thought you could tell me. Don’t you control the time-table? I only know—her anger rose again—that I have been waiting here since a quarter past twelve. I have waited quite long enough, I think. I am going home. Perhaps you will be good enough to enquire into the matter.

But haven’t you been to look for them? began Henrietta perplexedly.

No, said Clare. I don’t, you know. I expect people to come to me. And I don’t like wasting my time. Then, with a change of tone, Really, Miss Vigers, I don’t know whose fault it is, but it has no business to happen. The class knows perfectly well that it is due here. You must see that I can’t run about looking for it.

Of course, of course! Henrietta was taken aback. But I assure you that it’s nothing to do with me. I have rearranged nothing. Let me see—who takes them before you?

Clare shrugged her shoulders.

How should I know? I hardly have time for my own classes——

Henrietta broke in excitedly.

It’s Miss Durand! I might have known. Miss Durand, naturally. Miss Hartill, I will see to the matter at once. It shall not happen again. I will speak to Miss Marsham. I might have known.

Miss Durand? Clare’s annoyance vanished. She looked interested and a trifle amused. That tall girl with the yellow hair? I’ve heard about her. I haven’t spoken to her yet, but the children approve, don’t they? She laughed pointedly and Henrietta flushed. I rather like the look of her.

Do you? Henrietta smiled sourly. I can’t agree. A most unsuitable person. Miss Marsham engaged her without consulting me—or you either, I suppose? The niece or daughter or something, of an old mistress. I wonder you didn’t hear—but of course you were away the first fortnight. A terrible young woman—boisterous—undignified—a bad influence on the children!

Clare’s eyes narrowed again.

Are you sure? The junior classes are working quite as well as usual—better indeed. I’ve been surprised. Of course, to-day——

To-day is an example. She has detained them, I suppose. It has happened before—five minutes here—ten there—every one is complaining. Really—I shall speak to Miss Marsham.

Of course, if that’s the case, you had better, said Clare, rather impatiently, as she moved towards the door. She regretted the impulse that had induced her to explain matters to Miss Vigers. If it did not suit her dignity to go in search of her errant pupils, still less did it accord with a complaint to the fidgety secretary. She should have managed the affair for herself. However—it could not be helped…. Henrietta Vigers was looking important…. Henrietta Vigers would enjoy baiting the new-comer—what was her name—Durand? Miss Durand would submit, she supposed. Henrietta was a petty tyrant to the younger mistresses, and Clare Hartill was very much aware of the fact. But the younger mistresses did not interest her; she was no more than idly contemptuous of their flabbiness. Why on earth had none of them appealed to the head mistress? But the new assistant was a spirited-looking creature…. Clare had noticed her keen nostrils—nothing sheepish there…. And Henrietta disliked her—distinctly a point in her favour…. Clare suspected that trouble might yet arise…. She paused uncertainly. Even now she might herself interfere…. But Miss Durand had certainly had no right to detain Clare’s class…. It was gross carelessness, if not impertinence…. Let her fight it out with Miss Vigers…. Nevertheless—she wished her luck….

With another glance at her watch, and a cool little nod to her colleague, she left the class-room, and was shortly setting out for her walk home.

Henrietta looked after her with an angry shrug.

For the hundredth time she assured herself that she was submitting positively for the last time to the dictates of Clare Hartill; that such usurpation was not to be borne…. Who, after all, had been Authority’s right hand for the last twenty years? Certainly not Clare Hartill…. Why, she could recall Clare’s first term, a bare eight years ago! She had disliked her less in those days; had respected her as a woman who knew her business…. The school had been going through a lean year, with Miss Marsham, the head mistress, seriously ill; with a weak staff, and girls growing riotous and indolent. So lean a year, indeed, that Henrietta, left in charge, had one day taken a train and her troubles to Bournemouth, and poured them out to Authority’s bath-chair. And Edith Marsham, the old warhorse, had frowned and nodded and chuckled, and sent her home again, no wiser than she came. But a letter had come for her later, and the bearer had been a quiet, any-aged woman with disquieting eyes. They had summed Henrietta up, and Henrietta had resented it. The new assistant, given, according to instructions, a free hand, had gone about her business, asking no advice. But there had certainly followed a peaceful six months. Then had come speech-day and Henrietta’s world had turned upside down. She had not known such a speech-day for years. Complacent parents had listened to amazingly efficient performances—the guest of honour had enjoyed herself with obvious, naïve surprise: there had been the bomb-shell of the lists. Henrietta had nothing to do with the examinations, but she knew such a standard had not been reached for many a long term. And the head mistress, restored and rubicund, had alluded to her, Henrietta’s, vice-regency in a neat little speech. She had received felicitations, and was beginning, albeit confusedly, to persuade herself that the stirring of the pie had been indeed due to her own forefinger, when the guests left, and she had that disturbing little interview with her principal.

Edith Marsham had greeted her vigorously. She was still in her prime then, old as she was. She had another six years before senility, striking late, struck heavily.

Well—what do you think of her, eh? I hope you were a good girl—did as she told you?

Henrietta had flushed, resenting it that Miss Marsham, certainly a head mistress of forty years’ standing, should, as she aged, treat her staff more and more as if it were but a degree removed from the Upper Sixth. The younger women might like it, but it did not accord with Henrietta’s notions of her own dignity. She was devoutly thankful that Miss Marsham reserved her freedom for private interviews; had, in public at least, the grand manner. Yet she had a respect for her; knew her dimly for a notable dame, who could have coerced a recalcitrant cabinet as easily as she bullied the school staff.

She had rubbed her hands together, shrewd eyes a-twinkle.

I knew what I was doing! How long have you been with me, Henrietta? Twelve years ago, eh? Ah, well, it’s longer ago than that. Let me see—she’s twenty-eight now, Clare Hartill—and she left me at sixteen. A responsibility, a great responsibility. An orphan—too much money. A difficult child—I spent a lot of time on her, and prayer, too, my dear. Well, I don’t regret it now. When I met her at Bournemouth that day—oh, I wasn’t pleased with you, Henrietta! It has taken me forty years to build up my school, and I can’t be ill two months, but—— Well, I made up my mind. I found her at a loose end. I talked to her. She’ll take plain speaking from me. I told her she’d had enough of operas and art schools, and literary societies (she’s been running round Europe for the last ten years). I told her my difficulty—I told her to come back to me and do a little honest work. Of course she wouldn’t hear of it.

Then how did you persuade Miss Hartill?

But Henrietta, raising prim brows, had but drawn back a chuckle from the old woman.

How many types of schoolgirl have you met, Henrietta? Here, under me?

Henrietta fidgeted. The question was an offence. It was not in her department. She had no note of it in her memorandum books.

Really—I can hardly tell you—blondes and brunettes, do you mean? No two girls are quite the same, are they?

But Miss Marsham had not attended.

Just two—that’s my experience. The girl from whom you get work by telling her you are sure she can do it—and the girl from whom you get work by telling her you are sure she can’t. You’ll soon find out which I told Clare Hartill. And now, understand this, Henrietta. There are to be no dissensions. I want Clare Hartill to stay. If she gets engrossed in the work, she will. She won’t interfere with you, you’ll find. She’s too lazy. Get on with her if you can.

But Henrietta had not got on with her, had resented fiercely Miss Marsham’s preferential treatment of the new-comer. That Miss Marsham was obviously wise in her generation did not appease her amour propre. She knew that where she had failed, Clare had been uncannily successful. Yet Clare was not aggressively efficient: indeed it was a grievance that she was so apparently casual, so gracefully indifferent. But, as if it were a matter of course, she did whatever she set out to do so much better, so much more graphically than it had ever been done before, that inevitably she attracted disciples. But Henrietta’s grievance went deeper. She denied her any vestige of personal charm, and at the same time insisted fiercely that she was an unscrupulous woman, in that she used her personal charm to accomplish her aims: her aims, in Henrietta’s eyes, being the ousting of the secretary from her position of trust and possible succession to the headship. Henrietta did not realise that it was herself, far more than Clare, who was jeopardising that position. Though there was no system of prefecture among the staff, she had come to consider herself responsible for the junior mistresses, encouraging them to bring complaints to her, rather than to the head of the school. Old Miss Marsham, little as she liked relaxing her hold on the reins, dreaded, as old age must, the tussle that would inevitably follow any insistence on her prerogatives, and had acquiesced; yet with reservations. Had one of the younger mistresses rebelled and carried her grievance to the higher court, Miss Vigers’s eyes might have been opened; but as yet no one had challenged her self-assumed supremacy. Clare, who might have done so, cared little who supervised the boarders or was supreme in the matter of time-table and commissariat. Her interest lay in the actual work, in the characters and possibilities of the workers. There she brooked no interference, and Henrietta attempted little, for when she did she was neatly and completely routed.

But the more chary Henrietta grew of interfering with Clare’s activities, the more she realised that it was her duty (she would not have said pleasure) to supervise the younger women. She had a gift that was almost genius of appearing among them at awkward moments. If a child were proving refractory and victory hanging in the balance, Miss Vigers would surely choose that moment to knock at the class-room door, and, politely refusing to inconvenience the embarrassed novice, wait, all-observant, until the scene ended, before explaining her errand. Later in the day the young mistress would be button-holed, and the i’s and t’s of her errors of judgment dotted and crossed. Those who would not submit to tutelage she contrived to render so uncomfortable that, sooner or later, they retired in favour of temperaments more sheeplike or more thick-skinned.

To Alwynne Durand, at present under grave suspicion of tampering with Clare Hartill’s literature class, she had been from the first inimical. She had been engaged without Henrietta’s sanction; she was young, and pretty, and already ridiculously popular. And there was the affair of the nickname. Alwynne had certainly looked out of place at the mistresses’ table, on the day of her arrival, with her yellow hair and green gown—like a daffodil stuck into a bunch of everlastings, as an early adorer had described her. The phrase had appealed and spread, and within a week she was Daffy to the school; but her popularity among her colleagues had not been heightened by rumours of the collective nickname the contrast with their junior had evoked. Her obvious shyness and desire to please were, however, sufficiently disarming, and her first days had not been made too difficult for her by any save Henrietta. But Henrietta was sure she was incompetent—called to witness her joyous, casual manner, her unorthodox methods, her way of submerging the mistress in the fellow-creature. She had labelled her undisciplined—which Alwynne certainly was—lax and undignified; had prophesied that she would be unable to maintain order; had been annoyed to find that, inspiring neither fear nor awe, she was yet quite capable of making herself respected. Alwynne’s jolliness never seemed to expose her to familiarities, ready as she was to join in the laugh against herself when, new to the ways of the school, she outraged Media, or reduced Persia to hysterical giggles. She was soon reckoned up by the shrewd children as mad, but a perfect dear, and she managed to make her governance so enjoyable that it would have been considered bad form, as well as bad policy, to make her unconventionality an excuse for ragging. She had, indeed, easily assimilated the school atmosphere. She was humble and anxious to learn, had no notions of her own importance. But she was quick-tempered, and though she could be meek and grateful to experience backed by good manners, she reared at patronage. Inevitably she made mistakes, the mistakes of her age and temperament, but common sense and good humour saved her from any serious blunders.

Miss Vigers had, nevertheless, noted each insignificant slip, and carried the tale, less insignificant in bulk, in her mind, ready to produce at a favourable opportunity.

And now the opportunity had arisen. Miss Hartill had delivered Miss Durand into her hand. Miss Hartill, she was glad to note, had not shown any interest in the new-comer…. Miss Hartill had a way of taking any one young and attractive under her protection…. That it was with Miss Hartill that the girl had come into conflict, however, did away with any need of caution…. Miss Durand needed putting in her place…. Henrietta, in all speed, would reconduct her thither.

CHAPTER II

Miss Vigers hurried along to the Upper Third class-room. She straightened her jersey, and patted her netted hair as she went, much in the manner of a countryman squaring for a fight, opened the door, after a tap so rudimentary as to be inaudible to those within, and entered aggressively, the light of battle in her eye.

To her amazement and annoyance her entry was entirely unnoticed. The entire class had deserted its desks and was clustered round the rostrum, where Alwynne Durand, looking flushed and excited and prettier than a school-mistress had any business to be, was talking fast and eagerly. She had a little stick in her hand which she was using as a conductor’s baton, emphasising with it the points of the story she was evidently telling. A map and some portraits were pinned to the blackboard beside her, and the children’s heads were grouped, three and four together, over pictures apparently taken from the open portfolio lying before her on the desk. But their eyes were on Miss Durand, and the varying yet intent attitudes gave the collective effect of an audience at a melodrama. They were obviously and breathlessly interested, and the occasional quick crackle of question and answer merely accentuated the tension. Once, as Alwynne paused a moment, her stick hovering uncertainly over the map, a child, with a little wriggle of impatience, piped up—

We’ll find it afterwards. Oh, go on, Miss Durand! Please, go on!

And Alwynne, equally absorbed, went on and the class hung upon her words.

The listener was outraged. Children were to be allowed to give orders—to leave their places—to be obviously and hugely enjoying themselves—in school hours—and the whole pack of them due elsewhere! She had never witnessed so disgraceful a scene.

Her dry precision shivered at Alwynne’s coruscating adjectives. (It is not to be denied that Alwynne, at that period of her career, was lax and lavish in speech, altogether too fond of conceits and superlatives.) She cut aridly into the lecture.

Miss Durand! Are you aware of the time?

Alwynne jumped, and the class jumped with her.

It was curious to watch that which but a moment before had been one absorbed, collective personality suddenly disintegrating into Lotties and Maries and Sylvias, shy, curious, impish or indifferent, after their kind. Miss Vigers’s presence intimidated: each peeping personality retired, snail-like, into its schoolgirl shell. With a curious yet distinct consciousness of guilt, they edged away from the two women, huddling sheepishly together, watching and waiting, inimical to the disturber of their enjoyment, but distinctly doubtful as to whether Daffy, in the encounter that they knew quite well was imminent, would be able to hold her own.

But Miss Durand was self-possessed. She looked down at Miss Vigers from her high seat and gave a natural little laugh.

Oh, Miss Vigers! How you startled me!

I’m sorry. I have been endeavouring to attract your attention for some moments. Are you aware of the time?

Alwynne glanced at the clock. The hands stood at an impossible hour.

There! she remarked penitently, it’s stopped again!

She smiled at the class, all ears and interest.

One of you children will just have to remind me. Helen? No, you do the chalks already. Millicent! She singled out a dreamy child, who was taking surreptitious advantage of the interruption to pore over the pictures that had slid from the desk to the floor of the rostrum.

Milly! Your head’s a sieve too! Will you undertake to remind me? Each time I have to be reminded—in goes a penny to the mission—and each time you forget to remind me, you do the same. It’ll do us both good! And if we both forget—the rest of the class must pull us up.

The little girl nodded, serious and important.

Alwynne turned to Henrietta.

Excuse me, Miss Vigers, were you wanting to speak to me? I’m afraid we’re in rather a muddle. Children—pick up those pictures: at least—Helen and Milly! Go back to your desks, the rest of you. And then, to Henrietta again, I suppose the gong will go in a minute?

She was being courteous, but she was implying quite clearly that she considered the interruption of her lesson unnecessary.

Henrietta’s eyes snapped.

The twelve-fifteen gong went a long time ago, Miss Durand. It’s nearly one. Miss Hartill wishes to know what has happened to her class.

My hat! murmured Alwynne, appalled.

It was the most rudimentary murmur—a mere movement of the lips; but Henrietta caught it. Justifiably, she detested slang. She stiffened yet more, but Alwynne was continuing with deprecating gestures.

This is dreadful! I’m awfully sorry, Miss Vigers, but, you know, we never heard the gong! Not a sound! Are you sure it rang? (This to Henrietta, who never slackened her supervision of the relays of prefects responsible for the ever-punctual gong. But Alwynne had no eye for detail.) She continued agitatedly, unconscious of offence—

But of course I must go and explain to Miss Hartill at once. Children—get your things together, and go straight to the Lower Second. I’ll come with you. Miss Vigers, I am so sorry—it was entirely my fault, of course, but we none of us heard the gong.

But as she spoke, and the girls, attentive and curious, obediently gathered up their belongings and filed into the passage, the gong, audible enough to any one less absorbed than Alwynne and her class had been, boomed for its last time that morning, the prolonged boom that was the signal for the day-girls to go home. The children dispersed hurriedly, and Alwynne was left alone with Henrietta.

Alwynne was grave—distinctly distressed.

I must go and explain to Miss Hartill at once, she repeated, making for the door.

You needn’t trouble yourself, Henrietta called after her. Miss Hartill went home half-an-hour-ago.

The irrepressible note of gratification in her voice startled Alwynne. She turned and faced her.

I don’t understand! You said she was waiting.

When I left her, she had been waiting over half-an-hour. She told me that she should do so no longer. Miss Hartill is not accustomed to be kept waiting while the junior mistresses amuse themselves.

Alwynne raised her eyebrows and regarded her carefully.

Did Miss Hartill ask you to tell me that? Are you her messenger? she asked blandly.

The last sentence had enlightened her, at any rate, as to Miss Vigers’s personal attitude to herself. She was perfectly aware that she had been guilty of gross carelessness; that, if Miss Hartill chose, she could make it a serious matter for her; but for the moment her apprehensive regrets, as well as her profound sense of the apology due to the formidable Miss Hartill, were shrivelled in the white heat of her anger at the tone Henrietta Vigers was permitting herself. She was as much hurt as horrified by the revelation of an antipathy she had been unconscious of exciting; it was her first experience of gratuitous ill-will. She rebelled hotly, incapable of analysing her emotion, indifferent to the probable consequences of a defiance of the older woman, but passionately resolved that she would not allow any one alive to be rude to her.

And Henrietta, amazed at the veiled rebuke of her manner, also lost her temper.

Miss Hartill and I were overwhelmed by such an occurrence. Do you realise what you are doing, Miss Durand? You keep the children away from their lesson—you alter the school time-table to suit your convenience—without a remark, or warning, or apology.

I’ve told you already that I didn’t hear the gong, interrupted Alwynne, between courtesy and impatience. She was trying hard to control herself.

That is nonsense. Everybody hears the gong. You didn’t choose to hear it, I suppose. Anyhow, I feel it my duty to tell you that such behaviour will not be tolerated, Miss Durand, in this, or any school. It is not your place to make innovations. I was horrified just now when I came in. The class-room littered about with pictures and papers—the children not in their places—allowed to interrupt and argue. I never heard of such a thing.

Alwynne’s chin went up.

Excuse me, Miss Vigers, but I hardly see that it is your business to criticise my way of teaching.

I am speaking to you for your own good, said Henrietta.

That is kind of you; but if you speak to me in such a tone, you cannot expect me to listen.

Henrietta hesitated.

Miss Durand, you are new to the school——

That gives you no right to be rude to me!

Henrietta took a step towards her.

Rude? And you? I consider you insolent. Ever since you came to the school you have been impossible. You go your own way, teach in your own way——

I do as I’m told, said Alwynne sharply.

In your own way. You neither ask nor take advice——

At any rate, Miss Marsham is satisfied with me—she told me so last week. She felt it undignified to be justifying herself, but she feared that silent contempt would be lost on Miss Vigers. Also, such an attitude was not easy to Alwynne; she had a tongue; when she was angry, the brutal effectiveness of Billingsgate must always tempt her.

Henrietta countered coldly—

I am sorry that I shall be obliged to undeceive her; that is, unless you apologise——

To Miss Hartill? Certainly! I intend to. I hope I know when I’m in the wrong.

To me——

To you? cried Alwynne, with a little high-pitched laugh. If you tell me what for?

In Miss Marsham’s absence I take her place, began Henrietta.

Miss Hartill, I was told, did that.

You are mistaken. The younger mistresses come to me for orders.

I shall be the exception, then. I am not a housemaid. Will you let me get to my desk, please, Miss Vigers? I want my books.

She brushed past Henrietta, cheeks flaming, chin in air, and opened her desk.

The secretary, for all her anger, hesitated uncertainly. She was unused to opposition, and had been accustomed to allow herself a greater licence of speech than she knew. Alwynne’s instant resentment, for all its crude young insolence, was, she realised, to some extent justified. She had, she knew, exceeded her powers, but she had not stopped to consider whether Alwynne would know that she had done so, or, knowing, have the courage to act upon that knowledge. She had been staggered by the girl’s swift counter-attack and was soon wishing that she had left her alone; but she had gone too far to retreat with dignity; also, she had by no means regained control of her temper.

I can only report you to Miss Marsham, she remarked lamely, to Alwynne’s back.

Alwynne turned.

You needn’t trouble. If Miss Hartill doesn’t, I shall go to her myself.

You? said Henrietta uneasily.

Why, cried Alwynne, flaming out at her, d’you think I’m afraid of you? D’you think I am going to stand this sort of thing? I know I was careless, and I’m sorry. I’m going straight down to Miss Hartill to tell her so. And if she slangs me—it’s all right. And if Miss Marsham slangs me—it’s all right. She’s the head of the school. But I won’t be slanged by you. You are rude and interfering and I shall tell Miss Marsham so.

Shaking with indignation she slammed down the lid of her desk: and with her head held high, and a dignity that a friendly word would have dissolved into tears, walked out of the class-room.

CHAPTER III

Alwynne Durand was quite aware that she was an arrant coward. The cronies of her not remote school-days would have exclaimed at the label, have cited this or that memorable audacity in confutation, but Alwynne herself knew better. When her impulsiveness had jockeyed her into an uncomfortable situation, pure pride could always be trusted to sustain her, strengthen her shoulders and sharpen her wits; but she triumphed with shaking knees. Alwynne, touchy with the touchiness of eighteen, was bound to fling down her glove before Henrietta Vigers, and be ostentatiously ready to face cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and all kinds of music. But Alwynne, half-an-hour later, on her way to Miss Hartill and her overdue apology, was bound also to be feeling more like a naughty schoolgirl than a mistress of six weeks’ standing has any business to feel, to be uneasily wondering what she should say, how she should say it, and why on earth she had been fool enough to get herself into the mess.

If it had been any one but Miss Hartill, with whom she had not exchanged five words, but whom she had heard discussed, nevertheless, from every conceivable and inconceivable point of view, with that accompanying profusion of anecdote of which only schoolgirl memory, so traditional as well as personal, is capable.

Miss Marsham, she had been given to understand might be head mistress, but Miss Hartill was Miss Hartill. Alwynne, accustomed as she was to the cults of a boarding-school, had ended by growing exceedingly curious. Yet when Miss Hartill had returned, a week or two late, to her post, Alwynne could not, as she phrased it, for the life of her see what all the fuss was about. Miss Hartill was ordinary enough. Alwynne had looked up one morning, from an obscure corner of the Common-room, at the sound of a clicking latch, had had an impression of a tall woman, harshly outlined by the white panelled door, against which she leaned lazily as she quizzed the roomful of women. Alwynne told herself that she was not at all impressed…. This the Miss Hartill of a hundred legends? This the Olympian to whom three-fourths of the school said its prayers? Who had split the staff into an enthusiastic majority and a minority that concealed its dislike? Queer! Alwynne, shrugging her shoulders over the intricacies of a school’s enthusiasms, had leaned back in her chair to watch, between amusement and contempt, the commotion that had broken out. There was a babble of welcome, a cross-fire of question and answer. And then, over the heads of the little group that had gathered about the door, a pair of keen, roving eyes had settled on herself, coolly appraising. Alwynne had been annoyed with herself for flushing under the stare. She had a swift impression of being summed up, all raw and youthful and ambitious as she was, her attitude of unwilling curiosity detected, expected even. There had been a flicker of a smile, amused, faintly insolent….

But it had all been merest impression. Miss Hartill, who had been, indeed, surrounded, inaccessible, from the instant of her entrance until the prayer bell rang, did not look her way a second time. But the impression had remained, and Alwynne, obscure in her newness and her corner, found herself reconsidering this Miss Hartill, more roused than she would confess. If she were not the Hypatia-Helen of the class-rooms, she was none the less a personality! Whether Alwynne would like her was another matter.

Alwynne, in the next few days, had not come into direct contact with Miss Hartill. She had noticed, however, a certain stirring of the school atmosphere, a something of briskness and tension that affected her pleasantly. The children, she supposed, were getting into their stride…. But she began to see that the classes chiefly affected were the classes with which Miss Hartill had most to do, that the mistresses, too, were working with unusual energy, and that Miss Vigers was less in evidence than heretofore; that, in short, Miss Hartill’s return was making a difference. Insensibly she slipped into the fashion of being slightly in awe of her—was daily and undeniably relieved that her work had as yet escaped the swift eyes and lazy criticism. But she was also aware that she would be distinctly gratified if Miss Hartill should at any time express satisfaction with her and her efforts. Miss Hartill was certainly interesting. She had wondered if she should ever get to know her; had hoped so.

And now Napoleon Buonaparte and a stopped clock had between them managed the business for her effectually. She was going to know Miss Hartill—a justifiably, and, according to Miss Vigers, excessively indignant Miss Hartill. She looked forward without enthusiasm to that acquaintance. She did not know what she should say to Miss Hartill…. But Miss Hartill would do the talking, she imagined…. She was extremely sorry for herself as she knocked at Miss Hartill’s door.

The maid left her stranded in the hall, and she waited, uncomfortably conscious of voices in the next room.

Brand? But I don’t know any—— Drand! Oh, Durand! What an extraordinary time to—— All right Bagot. No. Lunch as usual.

The maid slipped across the hall again to her kitchen as Miss Hartill came forward, polite, unsmiling. She did not offer her hand, but stood waiting for Alwynne to deliver herself of her errand.

But Alwynne was embarrassed. The exordium she had so carefully prepared during her walk was eluding her. It had been easy to arrange the conversation beforehand, but Miss Hartill in the flesh was disconcerting. She jumbled her opening sentences, flushed, floundered, and was silent. Ensued a pause.

Clare surveyed her visitor quizzically, enjoying her discomfort. Alwynne was at her prettiest at a disadvantage. She had an air of shedding eight of her eighteen years, of recognising in her opponent a long-lost nurse.

Clare repressed a chuckle.

Try again, Miss Durand, she said solemnly.

I came, said Alwynne blankly. You see, I came—— She paused again.

Yes, I think I see that, said Clare, as one enlightened.

Alwynne eyed her dubiously. There might or might not have been a twinkle in her colleague’s eye. She took heart of grace and began again.

Miss Hartill, I’m awfully sorry! It was me—I, I mean, I kept the girls. I didn’t hear the gong. Really and truly I didn’t. Honestly, it was an accident. I thought I ought to come and apologise. Truly, I’m most awfully sorry, quite apart from avoiding getting into a row. Because I’ve got into that already.

Clare’s lips twitched. Alwynne was built on generous lines. She had a good carriage, could enter a room effectively. Clare had not been unaware of her secure manner. Her present collapse was the more amusing. Clare was beginning to guess that what Miss Durand did, she did wholeheartedly.

I expect you’re simply wild with me. Miss Vigers said you would be, said Alwynne hopelessly.

Miss Vigers ought to know, said Clare.

There was another pause.

I’m frightfully sorry, said Alwynne suggestively.

Are you, Miss Durand?

I mean, apart from upsetting you, I’m so savage with myself. One doesn’t exactly enjoy making a fool of oneself, does one, Miss Hartill? You know how it feels. And it’s my first post, and I did mean to do it well, and I’ve only been here six weeks, and I’m in a row with three people already.

How—three? said Clare with interest.

Well—there’s you——

I think we’re settling that, said Clare, with her sudden smile.

Are we? Alwynne looked up so warily that Clare laughed outright.

But the other two, Miss Durand—the other two? This grows interesting.

Well, you see, Alwynne expanded, I had an awful row with Miss Vigers—and she’s sure to tell Miss Marsham. I suppose I was rude, but she did make me so mad. I don’t see that it was her business to come and slang me before my class.

My class, corrected Clare.

I wouldn’t have minded you, said Alwynne, lifting ingenuous eyes.

I’m flattered, murmured Clare.

Well—you would have understood, said Alwynne with conviction. But Miss Vigers—— I ask you, Miss Hartill, what would be the use of talking about Napoleon to Miss Vigers?

I give it up, said Clare promptly.

There you are! Alwynne waved