“The girls are all through,” she exclaimed, a thrill of pleasureable excitement showing in her voice. “There was not a word spoken, nor communication of any sort.”
“It is truly the only way to conduct an examination,” he answered, turning to walk with her down the hall to the dormitory. “The credit should be given to you, Miss Hobart. This police-duty, which so insulted you last fall, was not pleasant work for a teacher; but custom makes slaves of us all. Nothing will please us better than knowing that Exeter can have honest examinations without faculty supervision. We have wished for just such conditions as this, but they seemed rather to be dreamed of than realized. An instructor can do little in such matters. The desire must come from the students. We give you, Miss Hobart, the credit of this change.”
“I do not know that I should have it,” was the reply. “It is not that I was more sensitive or had higher ideals than the other girls. It was that they were accustomed to such supervision since the days when they entered school, while it was all new to me. And being new, it impressed me greatly. You see,” she added, looking up at Dr. Kitchell as though she did not wish him to misinterpret her leaving his class-room that day of the first examination, “outside of class, you would not have thought of such a thing as questioning our word or our honesty, yet by your way of conducting an examination, you did both.”
“That is true in part. I questioned the honor of some. Class honor, I should say. But there is yet another side to that. Students who would scorn to be other than strictly fair and upright outside of class have stooped to all manner of subterfuge to pass an examination. All sense of moral responsibility evaporated the instant they took that little slip of printed questions in their hands.”
“So I have learned,” said Elizabeth. She could not refrain from smiling. Dr. Kitchell had a jocular manner. His words, even in the discussions of the most serious matters, had a touch of humor. “That is what surprised me most. The girls are Christians, that is, the greater number are. But one would have thought it was a reform school. I think those days are gone. Every Senior and Middler is pledged to conduct examinations as they were conducted this morning, and we are heartily glad.”
“So say we all of us,” was the cordial response.
They had come to the hall leading to the girls’ dormitory. So far and no farther could Dr. Kitchell walk with Miss Hobart. Elizabeth hurried to her room. Loud tones came from her apartment. Opening the door quietly, she peered in as though half afraid of what she might encounter. Mary Wilson was pacing up and down the room. Her head was high. Her chest was expanded. A glow of rhetorical enthusiasm was upon her cheeks and in her eye. In one hand, she held several sheets of typewritten paper toward which at intervals her glance wandered. The other hand sawed the air in impressive, if not graceful, gesticulations.
She heeded not the entrance of her roommate. She continued orating in tones which she was striving to make full and round. She gave a hurried glance at her paper, strode up the room, flung out her hand and roared forth, “I’m charged with pride and ambition—”
“What did they charge you for it?”
“The charge is true—”