“Hullo, Nancy Nelson!” she said, cheerfully, putting her hand upon the younger girl’s shoulder. “What did you want to be such a perfect little brick for?”
“I—I don’t know what you mean?” quoth Nancy, shrinking under the senior’s touch.
“Why, if you’d told Madame Schakael all about it the other night when she caught you in Number 40, do you suppose she would have punished you so harshly?”
“I—I couldn’t tell on them,” murmured Nancy, trying to hide her bundle.
“No. But what good did it do to try and save girls like Montgomery? They blame you, just the same.”
Nancy nodded, but said nothing.
“But I know that you didn’t tell on them; and so does Jennie Bruce. Madame Schakael learned the names of the culprits by going from door to door and finding out who were absent from their rooms. She did not have to go to Number 30 at all. And you got no thanks for trying to shield them.”
Nancy continued silent.
“And one of them told me,” said Corinne, pointedly, “that you paid for all those goodies they gorged themselves on; yet they froze you out of the party. Is that right?”