“If we make too much noise, though––” suggested Maudie Heywood.
Ardiune snapped her up promptly.
“We’ll make what noise we like! What does it matter? The monitresses are locked out, and Mademoiselle will never hear. We’ve got the place to ourselves to-night, thank goodness! Just for once, Mother Soup’s room down there is vacant!”
“Empty is the cradle, baby’s gone!” mocked Morvyth.
“’Xpect she’s having the time of her life at the dinner-party.”
“Well, we’ll have ours!”
A quarter of an hour later the dormitory presented a convivial scene. An orchestra of five, seated on a hastily cleared dressing-table, were performing music with combs, while the rest of the 104 company waltzed between the beds, with intervals of the fox-trot. Maudie Heywood and Cynthia Greene had accepted the inevitable, and joined the multitude. Apparently they were enjoying themselves. Maudie’s cheeks were scarlet, and Cynthia’s long fair hair floated out picturesquely as she twirled round in Elsie Moseley’s arms.
“We’re certainly making the most of our bubbling girlhood!” murmured Raymonde with satisfaction. “The Bumble couldn’t call us little premature women to-night!”
The dark anti-zepp curtains swayed in the night breeze, and the candles flared and guttered, the musicians tootled at their tissue-paper covered combs with tingling lips, faster and faster whirled the dancers, the fun was at its zenith, when quite suddenly the unexpected happened. The door of Miss Gibbs’s room opened, and that grim lady herself stood on the threshold.
If a spectre had made its appearance in their midst, the girls could not have been more disconcerted. A horrible hush spread over the room, and for a moment everybody stared in frozen horror. The musicians slipped down from the dressing-table and scuttled towards their own beds.