It took her but a moment, however, to place back the Cup through the open window on the little ledge where its place was. Another moment brought her flying into the school door, and a third brought her, panting and still wiping powder from her hands, to join the end of the line of girls. Only, however, to be sent straight back by Stella—one of the prefects—to finish her toilet below.
“Betty Carlyle, your skirt is covered with some sort of powder. Go back, please, and tidy yourself before you go into the dining-room.”
It was a very flustered Betty who took her seat five minutes later at the window table; and a quick look of surprise from the head of her patrol as she had passed the round table in the middle of the room where the prefects sat seemed the last straw. “And I was only trying—” thought Betty unhappily.
“You’ve lost us a mark; you’ve lost us a mark. At least, if mascots count, you have,” remarked Rene at her side.
Mona’s eyes from the other side of the table seemed to emphasize the statement.
“If mascots counted!” Betty’s cup felt as full as it could hold. She turned to Gerry. But even Gerry had lost her dimples. “I say,” she said in horror, “didn’t you hear first bell? It’s the very first dining-room mark in the patrol, you know.”
“Oh, I almost hope that mascots don’t count!” said Betty, almost in tears.
Mutton and potatoes tasted like nothing on earth; so did the pudding. And hasten slowly time spent under the trees had lost all its charm that afternoon. Instead of sending her thoughts inquiringly over the cottage in the wood, or remembering the fairy piper, or working up stories to tell to the twins next holiday, Betty felt hot at the back of her eyes, and a regular lump of misery at the back of her throat. She had been too helter-skelter again; and just when she’d been so keen to help. She hadn’t “hastened slowly”; she had “snatched” after helping, and so the helping hadn’t been worth anything. And to be the very first one to bring a dining-room mark to the patrol! What would Sybil think of her?—the look in Sybil’s eyes had shamed her badly enough. And she was to have brought the patrol luck! And now— Betty’s thoughts raced miserably on through the whole long hour.
It was at the end of the hour that the terrible thing happened. Unexpectedly. To the surprise of the juniors still resting under the shade of one of the old trees, it was Sybil herself who left the school doors and crossed the grass to summon them. When she reached the place, although there had been no hurry in her step, and although her tone as she spoke was quiet and unflurried, there was an anxious look in her blue eyes.
“Time,” she said slowly. Then, standing still on the grass facing the group under the trees, she spoke again. “I want to ask you all something,” said Sybil, “before you get up. Has any one of you touched the Guide Cup? It is missing from its stand in the Oak Hall.”