“A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I—It’s ‘I,’ Queenie! No, there’s another! It’s ‘J’! It’s going to be ‘J,’ old sport! Aren’t you thrilled? Oh, I say! Whoever on earth is that?”
Following the direction of her sister’s eyes, Quenrede looked through a veil of windblown hair, to see, standing among the stones, a stranger of the opposite sex, garbed in tweed knickers and leather gaiters. One glance was enough. The next second she turned, and beat a hurried and ignominious retreat to the sheltered side of the green mound. Ingred, panting in the rear, followed her to cover.
Quenrede, very pink in the face, sat down on a clump of heather and immediately began to put up her hair.
“I never felt such an idiot in my life!” she confided with energy to her sympathetic audience of one. “Ingred! That man knew what I was doing! I saw the horrid amusement in his face. He was laughing at me for all he was worth. I know he was!”
At eighteen it is an overwhelming matter to be laughed at. Quenrede’s newly-developed dignity was decidedly wounded.
“After all, it was a very schoolgirlish thing to do,” she remarked, sticking in hairpins as well as she could without a mirror. “Do you think he’s still there? I shall stop here till he marches off.”
“I’ll go and prospect,” said Ingred.
She came back with the bad news that not only was the stranger still there, but he was actually in close and apparently familiar conversation with Athelstane and Hereward, who were calling loudly for their sisters, and to confirm her words came distant jodellings of:
“Ingred!”
“Queenie!”
“Where are you girls?”
There was nothing for it but to come forth from their retreat. It was impossible to stay hidden forever. Quenrede issued as nonchalantly as she could, with her hair tucked under her tam-o’-shanter, and her gloves on. She bowed instead of shaking hands when Athelstane introduced Mr. Broughten, a fellow-student of his college; it seemed a more grownup and superior attitude to adopt. She thought his eyes twinkled, but she preserved such an air of standoff dignity that he promptly suppressed any undue inclinations towards mirth, and stood looking the epitome of grave politeness.
“Broughten knows all about the old barrow,” Athelstane explained. “He’s got a candle with him—we were duds not to bring one ourselves—and he’s going to act showman. Come along!”
The entrance into the mound was through a low doorway with lintel and posts of unhewn stone. Inside was a kind of central hall with three rudely-constructed chambers leading out of it. A pile of rough stones in front seemed to point to further chambers.
“That part’s never been explored yet,” said Mr. Broughten. “Some of us want to tackle it some day, if we can get permission, but it’s a big job. You don’t want to bring the barrow down on your head, and be buried in the ruins! I never think the roof looks too secure,” he added easily, poking at the stones above with his stick.
The girls, aghast at the notion of a possible subsidence, made a hasty exit to the open air, and hovered near the entrance in much agitation of mind till the rest of the party made a safe reappearance. Their conductor, with a side glance at the bunch of flowers—which Quenrede ignored—made some reference to the Giant King stone and his whispering companions: he was evidently well versed in all old traditions, though he refrained from mentioning local practices. He walked part of the way home with the Saxons before he branched off to the place where he had left his bicycle.
“You look nice—you do, really, with your hair down,” said Ingred to Quenrede that night, as the latter sat wielding her hairbrush at bedtime. “And you needn’t be afraid anybody would mistake you for a flapper. Why, Harry Scampton actually asked Hereward the other day if you were married! By the by,” she added wickedly, “do you know I’ve ascertained that Mr. Broughten’s Christian name begins with ‘J.’ Whether ‘John’ or ‘James’ I can’t say!”
“I don’t care if it’s Jehosaphat!” snorted Queenie. “I’ve told you already he doesn’t interest me in the least!”
XI
On Strike
It was about this time that a general spirit of trouble and dissatisfaction seemed to creep into the school. How and where it started nobody knew, any more than one can trace the origin of influenza germs. There is no epidemic more catching than grumbling, however, and the complaint spread rapidly. It had the unfortunate effect of reacting upon itself. The fact that the girls were restive made the teachers more strict, and that in its turn produced fresh complaints. Miss Burd, careful for the cause of discipline, made a new rule that any form showing a record of a single cross for conduct would be debarred for a week from the use of the asphalt tennis-courts, a decidedly drastic measure, but one that in her opinion was necessary to meet the emergency.
Though the disorder was mostly among the juniors, Va was not altogether immune from the microbe. It really began with a quarrel between Ingred and Beatrice Jackson. The latter was a type of girl common enough in all large schools. She was not always scrupulously honorable over her work, but she liked to curry favor with the mistresses. She copied her exercises shamelessly, would surreptitiously look up words in the midst of unseen Latin translation, and was capable not only of other meannesses, but sometimes of a downright deliberate fib. She and Ingred
