CHAPTER II
AN INTRODUCTION
Tea was in full swing when Geraldine at last found her way to the dining-hall. She stood for a few moments in embarrassed hesitation just inside the doorway, until a girl who was sitting at the head of the nearest table spoke to her.
"You haven't got a place yet, have you? Won't you come and sit by me?"
It was Monica Deane, the girl who slept in Number Fourteen Cubicle in the Pink Dormitory. Geraldine recognised her with a feeling of relief, and moved across to her table with alacrity. Monica spoke to a small girl sitting on her left hand.
"Shove up one, Vera, will you? And ask the others to move up, too. This is a new girl in my dorm, and I want to talk to her," she said, with a friendly smile at Geraldine as the girl slipped thankfully into the seat thus provided for her. "Pass the bread and butter down, Mamie," she added to somebody farther up the table. "And, Gwennie, run and get another cup of tea." Then, having thus attended to the new girl's immediate wants, she turned round to her with the obvious intention of commencing a conversation.
"Do you mind if I ask you some questions?" she began.
"Not at all," said Geraldine, looking up with a shy little smile. "I expect you want to know what my name is, don't you?"
"Well, yes—that was one of them," laughed Monica. "You've been asked that question before, evidently, from the tone in which you said it."