When a girl visited the town, she was given one of these forms, duly filled in by the Principal, without whose signature it was not valid. The system, perhaps, savoured of red tape, but it saved the mistresses the trouble of enquiring from head-quarters who were to compose their parties. Avelyn looked critically and covetously at the exeats. Each represented so much fun to one girl. A sudden idea struck her. She laughed aloud at the thought of it, and yielding to the impulse, counted out four of the forms, and popped them into her pocket. Then she fled back to the waiting Miss Kennedy with Volume III of the Encyclopædia Britannica.
Wednesday afternoons at Silverside were chiefly devoted to optional subjects. The violin master came to give lessons, and several girls whose spines were suspected of symptoms of crookedness, did special physical exercises under the eye of a gymnastic teacher. The elocution pupils met in the Sixth Form room, and learned to recite Shakespeare, while those who were taking oil-painting wended their way to the studio. Those unfortunates whose parents did not rise to "extras" were herded together in the dining-room, regardless of forms, and did plain sewing or printing. A band of privileged boarders, under guardianship of a mistress, started at 2.30 for the dissipations of the city. Now at 2.15 Avelyn was due for her music lesson. She put her pieces and studies into her case, washed her hands carefully, retied her hair ribbon, scented her pocket-handkerchief, and sauntered down the corridor. She paused for a moment at the door of the Fifth Form room, then entered. Laura Talbot was sitting disconsolately on one of the desks, girding at life to a sympathetic audience. Avelyn thrust the four exeat forms into her hand, and remarked:
"For the Cowslip Room! And I've got to go to my music lesson! Isn't it hard luck! Ta-ta! I'm late as it is, and Mr. Harrison gets baity if he's kept waiting."
Laura stared at the forms for a moment, utterly staggered, then incomprehension changed to joy, and she jumped from the desk.
"Irma! Janet! Ethelberga! We've got exeats! Oh, jubilate! Scurry quick and get ready! We've only just time to change our things. Oh, I say! To think of seeing 'The Temple Bells' after all!"
An agitated ten minutes followed, in which the four girls almost tumbled over one another in the hurry of making their toilets. Laura put on her best hat and birthday furs, Ethelberga sported a bracelet, Irma, after foraging at the back of her top drawer, was distinctly seen to abstract a powder puff and apply it to the tip of her nose, Janet tried to coax her fingers into new gloves a quarter of a size too small, there was an unlocking of cashboxes and a taking out of money. At the eleventh hour they sped down the stairs into the hall. The little party of elect were drawn up ready to go, and only waiting for Miss Peters. That lady had been impeded in her dressing, and consequently came hurrying up, very much flustered.
She was a gentle, fair-haired, middle-aged, depressed little person, who had been pitchforked into teaching against her will. Her weak point was discipline, and the girls knew it, and took base advantage. Now, instead of forming an orderly crocodile, they clustered round her, clamouring all sorts of requests for things they wanted to do in town.
"If there's time! Dear me, I don't know! I can't promise anything! It will all depend!" replied the harassed mistress.
She collected the exeats and counted them automatically. In her flurry she never noticed that four of them were not filled in with names or signed. Laura had handed them to her without herself noticing the omission. There was nobody to rectify the mistake, so the four room-mates, in most exuberant spirits, started in the crocodile for Harlingden. They accomplished a few purchases in the town, but poor Miss Peters found it so difficult to keep her flock together, that she was forced to abandon the shops, and suggested the cinema. She considered her rôle of duenna anything but an enviable position, and would willingly, that afternoon, have exchanged jobs with a charwoman. She breathed more freely when she had piloted her lively young charges up the stairs at the picture palace, and ensconced them in a giggling double row in the balcony. For a blissful hour and a half they would be out of mischief, with eyes fixed only on the marvellous scenes from India.
Meantime, while Laura, Irma, Janet, and Ethelberga were staring fascinated at the bewildering East, following the heroine through a series of dazzling adventures, things at Silverside were taking a prosaic and totally different turn. It happened that Irma and Janet, whose French recitations that morning had been a dismal failure, were due in the Fourth Form room that afternoon to say their returned poetry lesson to Mademoiselle. She waited a quarter of an hour for them, then, as they did not turn up, she instituted enquiries. Several reliable witnesses informed her that they had been seen (and envied) departing with the crocodile for Harlingden. Mademoiselle's temper was naturally peppery, and under such provocation as this she burst forth in great indignation: