Raymonde retired bubbling over with suppressed mirth.
“That girl’s the limit!” she reported to her confederates. “For calm self-complacency I’ve never seen anybody to equal her. The idea of imagining me as a new girl at her wretched pettifogging old school! Oh, it’s too precious! She’d patronize the Queen herself! The Poplars must be executing a war-dance for joy to have got rid of her. Probably they’d have subscribed for more than a bracelet to pass her on elsewhere!”
“So she’s waiting patiently till she wins the school,” hinnied Aveline. “Poor angel! Did you notice her wings sprouting, or a halo glowing round her head?” 27
“I think we can put her up to a few tips,” chuckled Ardiune.
“It would only be kind,” gushed Raymonde. “The sort of thing she must have done herself hundreds of times to many a poor neglected new girl at The Poplars. The bread she cast upon the waters shall be returned to her.”
“With butter on it!” added Aveline.
“She can swallow any amount of butter,” observed Raymonde. “She evidently likes it laid on thick. Suggestions invited, please, for kind and disinterested advice to be administered to her.”
“Professor Marshall comes to-morrow,” volunteered Aveline.
“The very thing! Ave, you old sport, you’ve given me an idea! Now just prepare your minds for a pretty and touching little scene at the beginning of the mediæval arts lecture. No, I shan’t tell you what it is beforehand. It’ll be something for you to look forward to!”
The staff at Marlowe Grange consisted of Miss Beasley, Miss Gibbs, and Mademoiselle, but there were several visiting masters and mistresses who had attended at the former house, and were now to continue their instructions at the school in its present quarters. Among these Professor Marshall was rather a favourite. As befitted a teacher in an establishment of young ladies, he was grey-haired and elderly, and, as the girls added, “married and guaranteed not to flirt,” but all the same he was jolly, had a hearty, affable manner, and a habit of making bad jokes and weak puns to break up the monotony of his lectures. It was decidedly the fashion to admire him, to snigger indulgently at 28 his mild little pleasantries, and to call him “an old dear.” Some of the girls even worked quite hard at their preparation for him. He had written his autograph in at least nineteen birthday books, and it was rumoured that, when the auspicious 10th of March had come round, no less than fourteen anonymous congratulatory picture post-cards had been directed to him from the school and posted by stealth. Having already improved their minds upon a course of English Classics and Astronomy, the school this term was booked for culture, and devoted to the study of the fine arts of the Middle Ages. A few selected members of the Sixth had been told off to search through back numbers of The Studio and The Connoisseur for examples of the paintings of Cimabue and Giotto, and the large engraving of Botticelli’s “Spring,” which used to hang in Miss Beasley’s study, now occupied a prominent position on the dining-room wall to afford a mental feast during meal-times.