Over Hendon a misty sun was veiled in banks of gray clouds, but high in the sky a wide streak showed of a pale and tender bird's egg blue.
"Well—what happened next?" McTaggart brought her, with a sudden drop, back to earth.
"Oh ... I felt so relieved I just rushed ahead, you know. I told him he was a regular brick! And then, as he seemed a bit surprised, I explained about the Black Book—how a third entry now might end in my being sent down for good.'
"'Good Heavens!' he said, 'I'd no idea,' and, really, he looked sympathetic. So I said I was awfully sorry that we'd all of us played the goat. Well, what d'you think he said then? quite simply—without 'side.'
"'It's partly my own fault, too ... I'm not popular, I know—I can't get the atmosphere...'
"You might have knocked me down with a feather!"
"I'll bet anything you explained it!" McTaggart smiled to himself.
"Why, of course I did." Jill stared at him. "I felt so awfully sorry. I said:
"'Look here, sir, we'd like you all right if only you'd treat us more like men. It's not a girl's school, it's a college. And lots of us are working hard to earn our own living when we leave. So, perhaps, we think a good deal of the ... usefulness of our work. We like to feel the Professors know it, and help and ... respect us—just like men. In the senior lectures most of us, too, are in our third year course, you know, and you treat us exactly like the juniors! It's all wrong, sir, don't you see?'"
"Bravo you! ..." McTaggart cried. "How did he take your ... candid help?"