“He did not. The letter did not go until yesterday, you see,” replied Joan. “The trouble for Tom will be that he will not only get beans from the authorities, but the boys will cut him dead for having been such a donkey as to trust a girl with a secret.”
“I don’t see why a girl should not be trusted as well as a boy,” said Dorothy, who always felt resentful at this implied inferiority of her sex.
“You may not see it, but your blindness does not alter the fact,” said Joan bluntly. “There goes Rhoda, holding up her head with the best because she can pay up the money she copped to pay for her old raffles. I wonder how she feels underneath, when she thinks how her letter to Tom’s Head will make history for the Compton Boys’ School, and for the camp as well? You see, she has let the whole lot into it, and there will be no end of a dust up.”
“Even scavengers have their uses,” said Dorothy, feeling suddenly better because she realized that Tom would have entirely lost faith in Rhoda; and although he might have to suffer many things at the hands of his outraged companions, he would learn wisdom from the experience, and come out of the ordeal stronger all round.
“It is our turn—come along,” cried Joan with an air of relief. She was thankful indeed to have got her unpleasant task over, and to find that Dorothy did not look unduly upset.
The struggle for the cup was being put through amid displays of wild enthusiasm. The first sets were played by boys against boys, and girls against girls, and the yelling grew fairly frantic when the semi-finals were reached.
The girls for the semi-final were Dora Selwyn and Rhoda against Dorothy and a Fifth Form girl, Milly Stokes, who had carried all before her in previous sets, though she was small, and younger than most of her Form.
It was rather hard for Dorothy to have to play against Dora and Rhoda, and she had little hope of surviving for the final. Rhoda was a good all-round player; she was great, too, at smashing and volleying; while Dora, with no great pace in her strokes, was very accurate, and always inclined to play for safety first.
There was no holding Milly Stokes. She behaved like one possessed. She sent the balls flying with a reckless abandon which looked as if it must spell ruin, yet each time made for success. Dorothy was wrought up to a great pitch. It was not tennis she seemed to be playing; it was the contest between right and wrong—she and Milly Stokes pitted against Rhoda and the head girl. She was not nervous. That story of Tom’s impending disgrace had so absorbed her that she could not think about herself at all. She was standing for what was upright and ennobling, so she must play the game to win.
Louder and louder grew the cheering; now she could hear the shouting for “Little Stokes” and “Sedgewick of the Sixth.”