"You have no idea when the soap was dropped into the soup kettle?"
"No. But wait! Just before I came into the cook tent to sit down I tasted the soup, as I had done a dozen times before while in the kitchen to make sure that it was exactly as it should be."
"Did you taste it just before you came in to dinner? Did you detect anything wrong with it, Miss Burrell?"
"There was nothing wrong with it then. I mean—you know what I mean. There was none of this soapy taste in it at all. To me it tasted delicious. The first I realized that something had happened to the consommé, was when I took a spoonful of it at the table here. Then I knew something was wrong with it. That is all I can tell you. But you must know that I would not do a thing like that, Mrs. Livingston. Please don't say that you think I might be guilty of any such thing. Do you think I would spoil my chance of winning an 'honor' for the sake of playing a contemptible trick?"
"No, Harriet, I do not think you would," decided Mrs. Livingston after gazing steadily into the troubled eyes of Harriet Burrell for a moment.
Harriet caught her breath sharply.
"It ith a mean thhame," declared Tommy in a voice that reached every person in the tent. "I gueth the banshee mutht have done it."
A chorus of giggles greeted this sally. The laughter was suppressed by the Chief Guardian.
"We will leave the mystery of the doctored soup as it stands until after breakfast to-morrow morning," announced Mrs. Livingston. "After that, if the guilty girl makes no confession in the meantime, we shall begin an investigation of our own."
The Chief Guardian rose, the girls doing likewise, after which they filed out of the tent. Once outside they began to talk excitedly. Most of them took sides with Harriet Burrell. They did not believe she could have been guilty of such a trick. Besides, she would be defeating her own ambitions if she did do so. She was certain to lose the coveted "honor." Despite this, however, there were those who did believe that Harriet had put soap in the consommé.