“I’ve missed half the term at school, but I studied by myself, and I was up in time to go to the Town Hall for the exam. I had to go to bed again afterwards, though.”
“Do you suppose you’ve got an earthly?” said Beatrice, in highly sceptical accents.
“Oh, I don’t know. You see, I was the youngest competitor of all, as it happened.”
Lydia had been very anxious to introduce this last piece of information, and it was plain that Beatrice and Olive were not altogether unimpressed by it.
Aunt Beryl had promised Lydia a telegram as soon as the results of the examination were put up in the Town Hall, and Lydia had already decided that in the event of failure, she should say nothing at all to the Senthovens. They would never remember to ask her about it. But if she had passed, she told herself grimly, they would have to acknowledge that they were not the only people who could succeed. Lydia reflected that she was sick of hearing how Olive had just saved a goal, and Beatrice had conducted her team to victory in yet another hockey match.
V
The last of Lydia’s Saturday afternoons at Wimbledon, however, was at length at hand.
“We might go and have some sort of a rag on the Common to-morrow for Lydia’s last day. Sunday doesn’t count,” said Beatrice, on Friday evening after supper.
“Quite a good egg,” agreed Olive. “Bob, are you game?”
Bob assented without enthusiasm. He was stretched at full length on the sofa, with his arms crossed underneath his head.