"What is the college crime?" she asked Henrietta, as they went upstairs after supper. They had paused by the big fan-lighted window on the landing to look down on the little quadrangle, letting the others precede them up to the drawing-room.
"Using the gymnasium as a short cut to the field-path," Henrietta said promptly.
"No, I mean real crime."
Henrietta turned to look at her sharply. After a moment she said: "My dear Lucy, when a human being works as hard as these girls do, it has neither the spare interest to devise a crime nor the energy to undertake it. What made you think of that subject?"
"Something someone said at tea this afternoon. About their 'only crime. It was something to do with being perpetually hungry."
"Oh, that!" Henrietta's brow cleared. "Food pilfering. Yes, we do now and then have that. In any community of this size there is always someone whose power of resisting temptation is small."
"Food from the kitchen, you mean?"
"No, food from the students' own rooms. It is a Junior crime, and usually disappears spontaneously. It is not a sign of vice, you know. Merely of a weak will. A student who would not dream of taking money or a trinket can't resist a piece of cake. Especially if it is sweet cake. They use up so much energy that their bodies are crying out for sugar; and though there is no limit to what they may eat at table they are for ever hungry."
"Yes, they do work very hard. What proportion of any one set finishes the course, would you say?"
"Of this lot"-Henrietta nodded down to where a group of Seniors were strolling out across the courtyard to the lawn-"eighty per cent are finishing. That is about average. Those who fall by the wayside do it in their first term, or perhaps their second."