"Oh, go on, tell us, Judy."
"Whatever were you doing on the platform?"
"Who is he, anyway?"
"Don't be a piker! Tell us, Judy."
"Fancy Miss Meredith whisking him off like that."
"Is he really Miss Ashwell's?"
But Judith, though triumphant, was loyally discreet. He was an old friend of her Uncle Brian's. She had to speak to Uncle Tom, and then Uncle Tom and Major Phillips came down to speak to Miss Ashwell.
There were some who felt that this was not all, but Catherine supported Judith and adjured them not to go into their own houses and spread romantic tales.
But there are some things which even a popular prefect cannot achieve. The affair was discussed in all its details by the tired forty as they consumed much cocoa and cake in the sitting-room, and even later, when the running of many bath-taps proclaimed loudly the fact that forty tired bodies were being refreshed, scraps of conversation floated over the bath partitions.
"Good thing it's his left arm that's hurt."