‘Of course I did, directly I got in,’ answered Jean. ‘Couldn’t think who it was looking so glum and thundery! Wonder why he came to a show like this? He doesn’t look as though he went in for gymnastics, does he?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Babs, trying to be fair even to the beast who had not shown himself worthy to be a prince. ‘It was very smart the way he caught that club. Perhaps he is good at gym, though he can’t take a joke.’
Angela required so much consolation from them both on account of her blunder, that they forgot all about the doctor, and spent most of their time, while Charlotte’s section was displaying on the horizontal ladder, in assuring her, with more or less confidence in their tones, that when it came to the rings no one could hope to compete with her. Then Charlotte Bigley returned at the head of her section, trying unsuccessfully to look as if nothing had happened; and Mary Wells proudly informed all those who cared to hear, that if anybody thought she was going to do the rings as well as Charlotte had just done the ladder, she was much mistaken!
‘Oh, you shut up!’ rejoined Babs. ‘You haven’t seen Angela yet.’
‘Or Jean!’ echoed Angela, faithfully.
The third voice for once was wanting. Jean Murray stood waiting for the signal to advance; and her determined, almost dogged look was blotting out every other expression on her thin, clever face.
Babs understood, and sprang forward to her place at Jean’s side.
‘It’s all right, Jean,’ she said earnestly. ‘I must try my very hardest, because Finny made us all promise; but–but I do want you to win, all the same.’
‘Oh, stop it, Babe,’ Jean threw back at her, in a tone that startled and hurt her; and the child shrank into herself again, and had a hard fight to keep back the tears that rushed into her eyes for the first time in many weeks.
Their persistent encouragement of Angela made her go through the first exercise on the rings successfully. It was a swing and a pull up in front, and she managed it more neatly than either of her supporters. Then came the swing and turn, and here Angela’s temporary courage deserted her. Perhaps she was flurried by the little attempt made by the gallery to applaud her the second time she came forward; in any case, the glimpse she had of Kit, who caught her eye and nodded cheerfully just as she was beginning, did not help to compose her. She turned too soon and too vigorously, and spun round helplessly in the air, until Hurly-Burly came to her aid and helped her to drop ignominiously to the ground. After that, it was evident that the issue of the competition rested with Jean and Barbara, for they soon showed that they were much more finished and thorough in their work than any one else in their section; and everybody was prepared for the statement made by Miss Finlayson in the next interval. She announced that Charlotte Bigley, Jean Murray, and Barbara Berkeley were exactly even up to that point, and that the result would have to be determined by the rope-climbing.