“It may make her lose her own position,” Cynthia Vaughn suggested. “Writing notes to young men is against the rules. It’s an expellable offence. But then,” she added, “this wasn’t exactly a love letter.”
“I should think not,” I exclaimed.
“It’s all the worse,” Milly groaned, as she scalded her throat with hot coffee.
“Adelaide can say she didn’t write it, you know,” Cynthia suggested cheerfully. “Winnie wrote it; and she didn’t poke it under the door either—Tib did that.”
“Do you suppose, Cynthia Vaughn, that Adelaide would do such a mean thing as not to take the consequences of her own actions?” Milly asked indignantly. Then she clasped my hand, for Miss Noakes stood at Madame’s table, and had opened her black bag and was handing Madame the note. We could see even at that distance that the seal was unbroken, but this gave us scant comfort; it was only putting off the evil day.
“Winnie might steal that note for us,” Cynthia suggested, “before Madame has a chance to read it.”
“Why are you always thinking up scrapes for Winnie to get into?” Milly asked.
Winnie pricked her ears, at the other side of the table. “What about Winnie?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Milly replied shortly; but as we went up to the studio a little before ten o’clock, I explained the situation. To my surprise Winnie’s eyes danced with merriment. “Snooks listened,” she exclaimed, “she heard Adelaide, I knew she did, and now we know how she finds out things that happen in the Amen Corner; often and often I have thought that I heard her, and have opened the door quickly only to find the corridor empty. Of course she is smart enough to know that she would get caught if she listened at the door; she would never in the world have time enough to scuttle down to her own room before we would see her. But the balcony! Strange we never thought of that. I’ll lay a trap for her—no, I need not; she has trapped herself; this affair is proof enough that she peeks and listens.”
“But I don’t see how this helps us,” I exclaimed. “This is the worst scrape of the season. Don’t you see it is? Such glee on your part is positively idiotic. We may all be expelled and Professor Waite too.”