"Jocelyn! Jocelyn!"
Joey made a dash for the door, pursued by a chorus of "Come again, come again soon!" In her hurry, she thought no more about the oddness of the little marks which appeared with the heat and disappeared again as quickly. Noreen sounded good-tempered; perhaps she would return the handkerchief to the Professor, as Joey herself was forbidden to go out.
She preferred her request, breathlessly. Noreen very muddy and dishevelled, answered a shade doubtfully.
"He's always such a foaming-at-the-mouth sort of beast if you intrude on his blessed privacy. Still, I don't mind trying if you like. He ought to be pleased to get back his old hanky. What am I to say if I see him—humblest apologies and all that? Righto! Stay with the kids till tea: we shan't get a fire till supper-time. If I don't return, look for me in a poisoned grave under the Lab."
Noreen departed. Joey went back to the babies for the ten minutes that remained before tea-time, and found that they liked stories quite as much as Kirsty and Bingo did. Then Matron came in to give them their tea, and Joey went down to hers.
She did not see Noreen till the meal was over; but caught her up in the hall—on the way to the classrooms for prep.
"So sorry, Jocelyn, after you've washed it and all, but I let that hanky drop on the way, and muddied it a little—not much. So I thought I'd better not face the Professor, but just chucked it in at an open window. You bet he'll see it—he probably won't know it ever left the floor where you found it," she said. "So that's all right, isn't it?"
"Thanks awfully," Joe said, and tried to think it was as right as Noreen said.