Elinor's face was perplexed. "But I don't see what can be done," she said gently. "I'd hate to have the thing dragged up before the school again. Of course, if it had been denied right then and there, I'd have been very glad, but now, after all these days——"
"It's only a week," protested Margaret Howes, firmly. "We had to wait till the Board met, you know."
"They can make an announcement, just as the prize announcement was made," explained Griffin, drumming impatiently on the table. "You may be too modest to be there, but it can be put through without you, and you will be cleared, don't you see?"
"Is Miss Green still in the Committee room?" asked Patricia suddenly.
"Of course," returned Griffin, shortly. "She had other reports to make. She usually stays about half an hour, she'll be longer today. Why?"
"I thought I'd like to have her here," she said, with a sidelong glance at Judith. "We've found out something about——"
She stopped, trying to arrange her speech so as to present the intended disclosure in the clearest form possible, but Judith, whose cheeks had been burning at Griffin's account of the interview in the Committee room, took the words out of her mouth.
"We've found out all about it!" she cried triumphantly. "Doris Leighton copied Elinor's design, and put it in ahead of Elinor! I know all about it, and I'll tell Miss Green and the whole committee, too, if I have to!"
Griffin was the first of the three to recover. She leaned forward, a thin, eager hand on Judith's arm.
"Say that again, young one," she demanded imperatively. "Make it good and plain this time."