"Why, it wouldn't be likely to happen twice," laughed Lesbia.
"You never know. The door might bang suddenly and get jammed. I wouldn't risk it. If you knew the agonies I suffered in there. I wonder my hair didn't go white, like the Prisoner of Chillon's. I tell you I heard a rat. I did really! It was gnawing away somewhere. I'd rather face a tiger than a rat. No. You may call it shell-shock, or mental kink, or lunacy, or anything you like, but nothing in this wide world will induce me to go into the Guild Hall again—not even to my own wedding if it was the only place where I could be married. That's how I feel about it."
CHAPTER XIX
Alack!
Of course, as bad luck would have it, Miss Ormerod had been on the edge of the crowd outside the Guild Hall, had recognized Lesbia Ferrars descending the ladder, had been very much scandalized at the occurrence, and after making full inquiries seemed to arrive at the rather unreasonable conclusion that it was all Lesbia's fault.
"You ought to have left the museum with the other girls and Miss Chatham," she decided, fixing a stern eye on the delinquent at the close of the court martial, "then this very unseemly exhibition would not have taken place. Such a thing brings the school into disrepute. I wonder how many times I have to impress upon you girls the need for quiet and lady-like behaviour in the streets. You disgrace your badge when you make yourself conspicuous. It's one of the most annoying matters I have to enter in my report."
"I'm very sorry, Miss Ormerod," said Lesbia dutifully.
In the cloakroom she was hardly so meek. She was dismayed at the hint that her escapade would be reported to Miss Tatham, and raged at the injustice of being scolded for what she could not help.
"I believe Miss Ormerod would have much rather we'd stayed in that museum all night," she flared. "She'd have let us starve, or catch pneumonia or rheumatism with sleeping on the stone floor, and wouldn't have cared a button so long as we didn't attract a crowd. Do you think I liked climbing over that wretched roof? I hated it. I never felt so silly in my life as when I came down that ladder and saw everybody staring as if I were a peep-show."
"Some people thought you were doing a turn for a cinema," chirped Kathleen.