"And that's that," said Phyllis Knight. "Mark my words, Cato's getting her nerve back again rapidly. She'll have it all back by the morning and will choose to brazen it out. We shall only get airy nothings for our pains in future, if I know Cato. Well, I'm glad I don't belong to Carslake's. Good night, Salome, old girl. Don't lie awake worrying. Good night, Van."
CHAPTER VI
THE RICHOTER RESULTS
As Salome had foretold, by next morning public opinion, in its fickle fashion, had veered completely round and the majority of the girls were of the opinion that Duane, and not Kitty, was the culprit. It seemed to be a matter more of feeling than cold reasoning, with many. It occurred to a Lower Fifth-former that plasticine was particularly handy in Duane's case, for lumps of it were always knocking around the study she shared with Frances, the artist. Others agreed that, after all, the motive for spoiling Salome's results would be stronger in Duane's case than in Kitty's, for Duane would benefit personally and very practically if she succeeded in triumphing over her most feared opponent.
The other prefects were intensely annoyed by Duane's manner, for the next day she refused to reopen the discussion at all, declaring that she had no more to say than what she had already said. She refused, their kindly-meant offers of help, and, in fact, seemed so flippantly callous in her treatment of the affair that they left her alone in disgust.
But Duane was to find out pretty thoroughly that the way of transgressors is not an easy path to tread. A stiff restraint of manner in the Upper Fifth classroom was all the condemnation the seniors would allow themselves to show; anything in the nature of hooliganism was "bad form" and derogatory to their dignity. They left that to their juniors.
The Carslake juniors, however, had no intention of allowing the matter to drop so readily, and were far more willing to accept the belief that Duane, and not Kitty, was guilty for Kitty had always been more popular with them than their head prefect. After their usual indignation meeting, Duane received a somewhat smudged sheet of exercise-book paper requesting her resignation as head prefect of Carslake's, a request to which she returned a decided refusal.
Thereafter the juniors did all they could in hundreds of little ways to show their reluctance to acknowledge her authority, though they did not dare to rebel outright. The final inter-house cricket match had to be scratched at the last minute because the juniors refused to play in a team captained by Duane, while from the cricket committee came a politely worded request that she should resign her place in the school eleven. A few days later, from the hockey committee came the still politer intimation that with much regret they felt obliged to withdraw Duane's hockey colour. Cricket was practically over, it is true, but for the next two terms hockey would reign supreme at Easthampton.
Strange to say, Duane's own seniors were not so hard on her as the rest of the school, France declaring sturdily that she had been Duane's friend for the last six years and thought it would be disloyal to allow the recent trouble to make any difference; Bertha Salter, with a kind of defiance, was heard to declare that she even had a sort of admiration for Cato and her "nerve"; while kind-hearted Margaret could not refrain from proffering her sympathy to Duane for the loss of her hockey colour.
"Yes, I'm afraid I shan't be able to show my shining genius at hockey next term by scoring all the goals for the school," Duane agreed, rather cheerfully than otherwise. "However, I console myself with the thought that the school matches are not the only ones played."