“It would be,” she said. “Well I must run, Cookie dear, for it will be the end of all things if I’m caught. But I had to tell you I was sorry!” She flashed a smile at the cook, and was gone.
Breakfast was eaten in unhappy silence: the weight of disgrace that lay over Number Four dormitory was felt by all the boarders, and many surreptitious glances were stolen at Miss Stone’s grim face, striving to forecast the extent of the penalty to be exacted from the chief sinner. In the playground, afterwards, Robin found her three allies banded together by a high resolve.
“We’re going in with you,” Betty stated.
“To Miss Stone? Indeed you’re not, my children!”
“We’re just as much in it as you are,” said Annette. “We knew all about it beforehand.”
“I never heard such rubbish,” said Robin, laughing. “I was the only criminal, and now I’m the only one asked to the party. You can’t butt in without an invitation—it isn’t polite!”
“Bother politeness!” Betty’s voice was almost tearful. “It will be ever so much better if she has four of us to deal with, Robin, dear—she can’t expel four of us.”
“She isn’t likely to expel any one,” Robin answered, in cheery tones that hid her own forebodings. “But if she is, I’m the one, and you three have nothing to do with it.”
“It isn’t fair for you to put on that ‘Alone I did it!’ air,” said Joyce. “You were only the catspaw; as Annette says, we knew all about it, so we’re just as guilty. I think all Number Four ought to go in with you.”
“What—Ruby too? Wild horses wouldn’t drag her, and you know it.”