Beryl said pensively. “Tyrone Power, and Errol Flynn, and—”
“Will one of you please answer my question?” Frances insisted sharply.
“You’re not a teacher, you know!” Joan said indignantly. “Answering your question, I should think Mr. Lever would be your best bet. Young—about twenty-four, waiting to be called up, and positively bulging with brains. You say you like that sort, so there it is.”
“How do I find him?” Frances asked quickly.
“You don’t! He’s only visible in the classroom when taking science. The rest of the time he is over on the staff side of the building. Very strict regulations, you know. Too many attractive young ladies about for any looseness.”
“Yes, I should think he ought to be able to answer my question very easily,” Frances nodded. “Thanks for telling me—albeit belatedly. Now to something else. How often is one allowed to leave the school? In the evening, I mean.”
“You can go to Lexham, the nearest town, once a week if you get a permit from Miss Black,” Joan answered. “Otherwise our activities are limited to Langhorn—the village. When you go to Lexham you have to be in here by ten-thirty. With Langhorn the limit is eight-thirty. Langhorn has a cinema, anyway, and that’s something.”
Frances gave a rather tired smile. “You were right, Joan, when you said things were slow around here. I like a bit of bright life now and again, so if at any time you wake up in the dorm and find a bolster doing service in bed for me, don’t be surprised.”
“Do as you wish, of course,” Joan shrugged. “But if you are ever caught breaking bounds, it may mean expulsion. You know that, don’t you?”
“I know. But I have my own reasons for being a roamer ”
“Not all the girls will be as loyal to you as we will,” Beryl pointed out. “We have our sneaks and tittle-tattlers.”
“I’ll risk it,” Frances said calmly.
Joan shrugged again and went on with her tea. It was no use trying to argue with this odd girl. So quiet and innocent, yet obviously knowing her way about, it was hard to read her. Certainly she did not behave with the usual self-conscious shyness of a new girl: she was entirely self-possessed.
“We’re going up into the solarium after tea,” Beryl said, looking longingly at the remaining cake. “Coming? Give you a chance to meet the others.”
“Depends what you do there,” Frances replied.
“Anything you want,” Joan shrugged. “Either lie in the evening sun and think out your future, or else have a bit of exercise with the medicine ball, dumb-bells, parallel-bars, or— Well, you can please yourself.”
Frances thought it out, then nodded—so some fifteen minutes later found them up in the solarium where several girls had already congregated. Some were writing letters; some were practising their own variations on physical culture; still others were sitting about and talking. But practically all of them paused in sudden interest at the sight of the new girl in the Sixth.
It certainly put ideas into the mind of Vera Randal, the head girl of the Sixth Form, to which position she had climbed mainly by literal force of arms. Tall and massively built, she came ambling forward as she saw Joan pointing out the various virtues of the big place.
“Who’s the little stranger?” she asked Joan.
Joan turned sharply and looked up at the big, domineering face with its thrush-like speckling of freckles.
“I’m Frances Hasleigh,” the girl herself said, quietly.
“Well, well—quite a high-sounding name! Know any tricks?”
“A few,” Frances answered, her voice still calm.
“Then don’t try them on me!” Vera Randal advised. “I’m the head girl of the Sixth Form and in case you get any queer ideas beforehand I’m telling you that. I have a way of dealing with shrimps like you if they try and upset my authority.… But you wouldn’t try and do that, would you?”
Frances did not answer and deliberately turned her back. The girls glanced at each other as Vera Randal’s face reddened.
“I’m talking to you! You! New girl!”
Frances turned languidly. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you’d finished long ago. You are head girl and you don’t allow shrimps like me to block your path. All right. Now what do we do?”
Breathing deeply, Vera gazed at the cynical grey eyes; then suddenly she looked round on the others.
“Impudent for a new kid, isn’t she?” she sneered. “But she’ll learn! All right, it’s time for our usual half-hour’s ultraviolet. Come on, everybody!”
There was a general scurrying to the dressing rooms. Joan caught Frances’s arm tightly.
“Come on, Frances—this way. It will tone you up a bit. You have a pretty pale skin, come to think of it—”
“Just a minute!” Frances shook herself free. “What exactly are we going to do?”
“Take sunray treatment. There are the machines over there by the wall. Ultraviolet. It’s grand stuff if you know how to use it—”
“Not if I know it!” Frances said abruptly, her mouth setting firmly—then she looked round as the big hand of Vera Randal fell on her shoulder.
“Won’t do, newcomer!” she announced. “We all do it, and My Lady Highbrow isn’t going to be the exception! Come on and get into a swimsuit—”
“I said I wasn’t going to!” Frances retorted. “Just leave me alone!”
“I don’t stand disobedience, especially from a new kid!” Vera snapped. “And you’re going to do as I say!”
With that she whirled Frances forward resolutely, but the girl did not go very far. Suddenly she halted herself, turned round, and caught the big girl by the wrist. Before she knew what was happening Vera had whirled round, over Frances’s head, and landed with a terrific thump on the floor matting.
“Sorry,” Frances said, straightening up, “but I meant what I said. I am not going to take ultraviolet treatment—”
She headed towards the door, then, as she reached it, she paused and looked back.
“That’s one of my tricks,” she explained drily, smiling at the astonished, dishevelled Vera. “Jujitsu. Why don’t you try it yourself some time?”
“Of all the confounded…,” Vera breathed, then she blinked as the door closed sharply and Frances departed.
* * * *
Mr. Robert Lever, aged twenty-four, proud of his moustache and his prowess in the various branches of science, was deep in Einstein’s Relativity when there came a gentle knocking on his study door. He looked up, put on the plain-lensed glasses he wore to convey a more mature aspect, straightened his ruffled black hair, then bade the visitor enter.
He
