The Principal's voice was very stern, so stern that Monica dared not lift her glance from the carpet pattern she was so desperately studying. Yet a few months before she had stood and listened with an attitude of hard defiance when told that she would not be allowed to return to her first school after the holidays.
When Miss Julian spoke again, Monica was astonished at the sudden change from severity to gentleness.
"You know, of course, Monica, that you came to St. Etheldreda's with a poor character. I was told that at your last school you were naughty, stubborn and unmanageable, finally bringing disgrace upon yourself and the school by bare-faced cheating in a public exam, for which behaviour you were quite unashamed and unrepentant. The Head Mistress's statement was confirmed by your aunt. Because I knew both your parents, and knew what splendid people they were, it was hard for me to believe that their only child should be so deficient in moral stability. I wrote also to your old nurse, under whose care you lived for many years after your parents' death, and she declared that though highly strung and sometimes full of mischief you had never been a bad girl, never unmanageable, dishonest or untruthful.
"For the sake of the great friendship between your mother and myself I resolved to give you another chance here on equal terms with the rest of my girls. So far I have not been unduly disappointed. At first I received reports that you did not always settle down in class as well as you should and were sometimes troublesome to the mistresses. I asked the mistresses to take into account the fact that you were not used to school ways and school routine like the rest of our girls. On one occasion Miss Bennett had to punish you severely for neglecting your preparation, but since then reports on your work have been mainly good and Miss Andrews in particular is highly delighted with your Latin. I had hoped such progress was going to continue till the end of the term, but this trick you have tried to play on Allison is one I cannot overlook. You should have broken with this girl on leaving your last school and not have continued your friendship with her when you realized it was proving a bad influence. Cannot you tell me all about it, Monica? You have told me very little except the bare facts."
"There isn't anything else to tell," Monica murmured, still wondering miserably if the Principal was going to expel her. How gladly she would have denied her share in the matter! But she could not.
"Then I shall leave the matter where it is for a few days' consideration," the Principal replied. "Perhaps by then you will be willing to tell me why you planned this unkind trick. I shall speak to you again about it later, probably in about a week's time."
The astonished Monica was dismissed, still ignorant of her fate. A reprieve of a week! What was really in the Principal's mind? She wished she knew. This uncertainty was far worse than the actual punishment.
For a few days Monica and the sham telegram formed the chief topic of conversation at St. Etheldreda's. Whatever room you entered, at whatever time of the day—save actual lesson hours—you might be sure to hear somebody discussing the affair. For indeed, schoolgirls, like everybody else, must have something to talk about and a sensational story like this was pounced upon with avidity. Everyone wondered why the Principal delayed in pronouncing sentence, and though the Fifth and Sixth, unlike the lower forms, had never believed it to be an offence calling for the extreme punishment, they certainly did not think Monica should escape altogether.
After about three days the outburst of feeling began to die a natural death, though it was not forgotten entirely. For a while the Fifth vigorously sent Monica to Coventry, but as she had never been on friendly or intimate terms with her form companions, this was not such a great hardship as it sounds. Glenda and one or two others had tried hard to persuade Nat also to ostracize Monica, but in vain.
Nat's attitude towards her study-mate was a curious one; and in truth, Nat herself could not account for her own feelings in the matter. She was the sort of girl who scorned sentimentality of any kind and yet had a very soft spot for helpless creatures in distress, particularly dumb animals. During her first year at St. Etheldreda's, when a girl of eleven in the Second Form, she had broken the school ranks while on an afternoon's walk to rush to the rescue of a miserable, bedraggled cat some boys were teasing, attacking them with fists and feet till the mistress in charge came to the rescue. The cat was old and mangy and evil-smelling and should have been painlessly chloroformed, but Nat had begged to be allowed to take it to school and give it a saucer of milk, after which it had been placed, dirt and all, upon the best silk cushion in front of the library fire. Had Monica continued to show the same sullen, defiant front as she had done during her first week or two in the study, Nat would probably have condemned her as severely as any of the Fifth, perhaps more severely; but something in Monica's plea that Nat should believe she regretted the telegram trick, and in her shrinking fear of being expelled again, touched the soft spot in Nat's heart in the same way as the bedraggled, mangy cat had done.