Mademoiselle looked, as she felt, completely taken aback by this unexpected request. It sounded strange indeed coming from Pixie’s lips, and it was difficult to explain to the girl that she herself would be the greatest hindrance to the granting of such a request. She looked down, fingered her dress in embarrassment, and said slowly—
“For my part I should be glad for the girls to have their party. It is hard that they should all suffer, and it is dull for them. I have been here three years, but it was never so dull as this. Yes, I would ask, but what would Miss Phipps say? That is a different thing! It seems odd to stop the holidays and give the party all the same, and—do you not see?—the bad girl—the girl who will not say what she has done—she would have her pleasure with the rest, and that would not be right. It is to punish her we have to punish many.”
“But if I stayed upstairs—” cried Pixie eagerly, and then stopped short, with crimson cheeks, as if startled by the sound of her own words. “I mean I am the one they are vexed with; they want to punish me most. If I stayed upstairs in my own room, or was sent to bed, why shouldn’t the others have their party? It would be an extra punishment to me to hear them dancing, wouldn’t it now?”
Mademoiselle threw up her bands in an expressive silence. In all her experience of school life never before had she met a girl who pleaded in such coaxing terms for her own humiliation, and she was at sea as to what it might mean. Either Pixie was guilty, in which case she was one of the most arrant little hypocrites that could be imagined, or she was innocent, and a marvel of sweetness and charity. Which could it be? A moment before she had felt sure that the former was the case, now she was equally convinced of the latter. In any case she was gratified by the idea that she herself should plead for the breaking-up party, and was ready to promise that she would interview Miss Phipps without delay.
“And ye’ll not say that ever I mentioned it,” urged Pixie anxiously, “for maybe that would put her off altogether. Just ask as if it was a favour to yourself, and if she asks, ‘What about Pixie?’ ‘Oh, Pixie,’ says you, ‘never trouble about her! Send her to bed! It will be good for her health. She can lie still and listen to the music, and amuse herself thinking of all she has lost.’”
The beaming smile with which this suggestion was offered was too much for Mademoiselle’s composure, and, do what she would, she could not restrain a peal of laughter.
“You are a ridiculous child, but I will do as you say, and hope for success. I like parties too, but it will not be half so nice if you are not there, petite! See, I was angry at first, and when I am angry I say many sharp things, but I am not angry any more. If it had happened to anyone to break my bottle by mistake, she need no more be frightened to tell me. I would not be angry now!”
“Wouldn’t you?” queried Pixie eagerly, but instantly her face fell, and she shivered as with dread. “But, oh, Miss Phipps would! She would be angrier than ever! The girls say so, and it is only a fortnight longer before the holidays, and then we shall all go home. If it is not found out before the holidays, it will be all over then, won’t it? No one will say anything about it next term.”
“I do not know, Pixie. I can’t tell what Miss Phipps will do,” returned Mademoiselle sadly. She felt no doubt at this moment that Pixie was guilty; but that only strengthened her in her decision to plead for the party, for it did indeed seem hard that twenty-nine girls should be deprived of their pleasure for the sake of one obstinate wrong-doer.