"No, and I don't mean to, either."
"But, Gwen, you must! We've taken the ballot, and the votes are exactly even. You've got the casting vote!"
"Have I, indeed? No, thank you! It's rather too great an honour!"
"But look here, Gwen, it's the only way to decide it. We've got to choose either Elspeth or Hilda."
"Then you may fight it out amongst you. You don't suppose, when you've all voted by ballot, that I'm going to take the responsibility of a casting vote. It's a most unfair proposal. Why, the rejected candidate and all on her side would never forgive me!"
"We might have the ballot again," suggested Betty. "Then you need only put your cross."
"As if everybody wouldn't know who was responsible for the extra cross! I might as well write Gwen Gascoyne on my paper at once! It's no use pulling my arm; I'm not coming in to be made a cat's paw. You may go and tell the others so if you like."
Betty and Ida departed, grumbling loudly at Gwen's "unaccommodatingness", as they called it, and Gwen stayed in the playground until the bell rang, fuming with indignation. Every fresh little episode seemed to serve to make her more of an alien in the Form than ever. But here her decision was absolutely justifiable; not one of the girls would have cared to accept the unenviable role which they had wished to thrust upon her. Perhaps for that very reason they were all the more annoyed at her action. She was received with black looks when she re-entered the classroom. Elspeth Frazer whispered something to a friend, and turned away. Gwen could not quite hear, but it sounded painfully like "beast!"
"Have they settled it?" she asked Netta.
"Yes; Elspeth and Hilda drew lots, and Hilda won. I'm fearfully sorry she did. Elspeth says it's all your fault, and that you ought to have voted for her when you'd made such a fuss about the clique."