"Well," said Muriel at length, as the silence still continued—"well? What are you going to do about it?"
"We thought that—that perhaps we'd better make Gerry a public apology," faltered Dorothy, her usual sang-froid deserting her for once under Muriel's coldly critical eye. "We thought if you would call a meeting of the whole school that we'd ask Gerry to come down, and then we'd tell her how frightfully sorry we are about having been so mean, and each of us would apologise to her in front of everybody."
"And jolly pleasant that would be for poor Gerry!" said Muriel. "Do you think she wants a public apology! To be made to feel an utter ass in front of the whole school just to ease your rotten little consciences! We'll give her a public ovation if you like, but not a public apology—at least, not one anything in the least like the scheme you've planned. If you want to make amends, I think it would be much more to the purpose if you went and told Miss Burton the truth about that strike of yours, and how it was Gerry who broke it down by her plucky action in refusing to go on with it."
The Lower Fifth gasped a little. Jack had certainly confessed with a vengeance! Somehow it had never before struck the Lower Fifth that Gerry's action on that particular occasion had been plucky.
"But of course, when you come to think about it in the right light, it was plucky of her," Hilda Burns said afterwards, when the matter came up for discussion in the Lower Fifth sitting-room. "It must have needed quite a lot of courage for Gerry to say what she did that evening."
"Yes. It was moral courage," said Jack. "She wanted most awfully badly to stick in with us and be friendly. But she just felt she had to stay out because she felt so sorry for Miss Burton, although she knew how beastly we should all be to her."
But that was afterwards. At the moment the Lower Fifth was scarcely able to view the courage of Gerry Wilmott in any light at all; it was so flabbergasted at having its past delinquencies cast up at it in this manner, and so dismayed at Muriel's suggestion that it should go and acquaint Miss Burton with the full details of the matter.
There was a moment's hesitation, then suddenly Dorothy Pemberton made a movement of acquiescence.
"All right, we will!" she announced. Then, turning round to the rest of the form, she asked briefly:
"Are you all game?"