"I do not wish to be unjust. I do not think she was intentionally insubordinate." Henrietta fingered one of the tall pink roses that had appeared on her desk that morning. "I believe she meant well."
"She was a dear!" said the little gym mistress.
"She was an impossible young woman," retorted Henrietta with spirit. "At the same time——"
"At the same time?" Clare spoke with unusual friendliness.
"She certainly had a way with her," said Henrietta.
CHAPTER XV
Cynthia Griffiths had set a fashion.
Her kewpie hair-ribbons and abbreviated blouses were an unofficial uniform long after she had ceased, probably, to know that such articles of dress existed. Her slang phrases incorporated themselves in the school vocabulary. Her deeds of derring-do were imitated from afar. To have been on intimate terms with her would have been an impressive distinction, had not every member of the school been able to lay claim to it. For Cynthia's jolly temperament laughed at schoolgirl etiquette, could never be brought to realise the existence of caste and clique. She darted into their lives and out again, like a dragon-fly through a cloud of gnats. It was not strange that her beauty, her prodigality, in conjunction with the all-excusing fact of her nationality, should have attracted the weather-cock enthusiasm of her companions: should have made her, short as her career had been, the rage.