It was at this moment that two of the Upper Fifth came scurrying up to their prep room, and the two who had been talking there had to get out in a hurry.
Rhoda was carrying things before her in the Sixth. She had contrived to chum up a great deal with Dora Selwyn, who by reason of being head girl was a power in the place. Dora was rarely top of the school in the matter of marks; the fact that she was specializing naturally tended to keep these down. But in every other sense she was top, and she was leader—in short, she was it, and every one realized this.
Dora had fallen foul of Rhoda a good many times during the years they had both been at the Compton School, but they had seemed to get on better of late. Right down at the bottom Dora was fearfully conservative. To her way of thinking it was quite wrong that a new girl like Dorothy Sedgewick should have been put straight into the Sixth. It was, in fact, a tacit admission that education in another school might be as good as it was at the Compton Schools—a rank heresy, indeed! Dora would have got over that in time, perhaps, if Dorothy had been something of a slacker; but it did not please her that the new girl—that is to say, the comparatively new girl—should be mounting to the top of the school in the matter of marks week by week, so she veered round to the side of Rhoda and championed her cause.
The days simply flew now. The summer term was always delightful at Sowergate. There was sea-bathing; there was tennis and golf; frequent picnics livened things up for all who cared for that sort of thing; there were bicycle trips; some of the girls were learning to ride; two were having motor lessons—so that, taken all round, every one was so full of affairs that each night as it came was something of a surprise, because it had arrived so speedily.
Dorothy seemed to live only for the end of the week, when the Head was to give her decision. In some ways it was the longest week she had ever lived through; in many other ways it was so short that Dorothy felt fairly frightened by the speed with which it went.
It was evening again when she was summoned to the private room of the Head, and she rose up in her place to obey the call, feeling as if she were going to the place of execution.
“Dorothy dear, I am so sorry for you!” murmured Margaret, jumping up to give her a hug as she went out of the room, while Hazel nodded in sympathy, and Jessie Wayne from the far corner blew her a kiss.
It was good to feel that she had the sympathy of them all, but a wry little smile curved Dorothy’s lips as she went downstairs. She was thinking how they would all have stared if she could have told them what was the matter—and then, indeed, they would have been sorry.
She was sorry for herself, except when she thought of her father; and then, in her pain for him, she forgot to suffer on her own account.