"You must be very quick, then, Aldred," she replied. "If you lose your turn I shall count it as a miss."
Aldred was up and out of the door in a minute. Once on the landing she glanced cautiously round, to make certain that nobody was in sight; then, boldly opening the glass front of the clock, she moved the hands till they pointed to three minutes to eleven. She returned to her place, ostentatiously displaying the clean handkerchief, just as the Form were wrestling with the Punic Wars, and by a lucky chance got the date of the battle of Cannæ, which was the only one she knew.
"What was the policy of Rome after this defeat?" asked Miss Webb.
Lorna could not remember, and the question passed on to Phœbe, who made a bad shot and answered wrong. Dora, Agnes and Myfanwy missed entirely, and Miss Webb was in the act of turning to Aldred, when the clock outside began to chime.
The teacher looked surprised, and glanced at her watch.
"I must surely be late!" she remarked. "I make it only twenty minutes to eleven."
"The landing clock is always right," volunteered Ursula, who, being doubtful herself as to the policy of Rome in that particular emergency, was as relieved as Aldred.
Miss Webb did not dispute the matter, but closed her book. Perhaps she also was not sorry to find it was lunch-time sooner than she had expected. The girls did not need telling to go; they rose in a body, and fled downstairs in hot haste.
"It isn't really eleven yet!" panted Aldred, when they had reached the comparative safety of the hall. "Oh, don't make such a noise! Miss Drummond will hear us, and come out and send us back. Let us rush outside, into the carving-shed!"
"We knew it wasn't!" exclaimed Dora. "We all had our watches. How clever of you to put on the clock! I guessed in a second what you'd done."