"Very well," she said gently. "Don't get into such a stew over it. You shan't play in a match again until you feel more confident. But you've got to learn to play hockey, you know. I must take you in hand myself and see what I can do with you. Meanwhile you must cheer up, and not go fretting yourself to death over that one ball. It really doesn't matter an atom!"
And as they had now reached the school buildings, she let go of Gerry's arm, and with a kindly smile and an encouraging pat on her shoulder, she sent the Lower Fifth girl off to the dormitory to change, not a little comforted.
CHAPTER XI
A LESSON IN HOCKEY
But the comforted feeling did not last very long. There was no monitress on duty in the Pink Dormitory when Gerry reached it, both Muriel and Monica, who sometimes acted as the head girl's understudy, having been detained downstairs, and Dorothy Pemberton was taking advantage of that fact to change from her hockey things to her ordinary school attire in Phyllis Tressider's cubicle. Through the half-drawn curtains the two saw Gerry go by, and immediately brought their conversation round to the new girl's display of cowardice upon the playing-field.
"Wasn't it a shame we didn't win the match?" lamented Phyllis. "If it hadn't been for German Gerry's funking that ball we must have won."
"Sickening, isn't it?" agreed Dorothy, raising her voice so that there could be no possible doubt about the occupant of the next cubicle hearing the remark. "I can't think what made Muriel play her! I shouldn't think she ever would again!"
"Fancy being afraid of a hockey ball!" said Phyllis scornfully.
"Perhaps it was the sight of Jack that frightened her," suggested Dorothy. "Jack owes her something for the way German Gerry stopped her playing in that hockey trial. Perhaps she thought Jack was going to take it out of her then with a hockey stick!"