Kathleen sat quite still for a minute until she had recovered her breath.  She looked around her.  To her relief, she saw that they were alone.  There was no one else in the compartment.

“Now then,” she said, “how is it that all the others have funked it?”

“There has been so much muttering and whispering and suspecting going on during the whole livelong day that they were positively afraid,” said Susy.  “Indeed, if it hadn’t been for you, Kathleen, I doubt if any of us would have come.”

“Well, girls, we can’t help it,” said Kathleen.  “If the rest are so timid, there’s more fun for us; isn’t that so?”

She looked round at her companions.

“I mean to enjoy myself,” said Kate Rourke.  “I have been to a theater twice before.  Once I went with my grandfather, and another time with an uncle from Australia.  I didn’t go to the pit when I went with uncle.  He took me to a grand stall, and we rubbed up against the nobility, I can tell you.”

It suddenly occurred to Kathleen that Kate Rourke was rather a vulgar girl.  She drew a little nearer to her, however, and fixed her very bright eyes on the girl’s face.”

“But we needn’t go to the pit, need we?” she said.  “I meant to pay for forty.  If there are only six, why shouldn’t we have jolly seats somewhere, and not waste our time outside the theater?”

“That would be nice,” said Kate Rourke.  “I always enjoy myself so much more if I am in good company.  I have been looking up the plays at the theaters, and there is a very fine piece on at the Princess’.  That is in Oxford Street.  It is a sort of melodrama; there’s a deal of killing in it, and the heroine has to do some desperate deeds.”

“Oh, dear!” said Susy, with a sigh; “I don’t feel, somehow, as if I much cared where we went.  It will be awful afterwards when the fun is over.”

“But we will enjoy ourselves, Susy, while the fun lasts,” said Kathleen.  She tried to believe that she was enjoying herself and was having a right good time.  She tried to forget the fact that Alice Tennant might really have seen her off, and that Mrs. Hopkins had justice in her remarks when she begged and implored of Kathleen not to go to the train.

“What can she have found out?” she thought.

She now turned to Susy.

“Has your mother learned anything, Susy?” she said.

“What do you mean?” said Susy, turning very pink.

“Well, you know, as I was running here—­Oh, girls, I had such a lark!  What do you think happened?  That horrid Alice—­Alice Tennant—­ran after me as I was leaving the house.  I raced her across the common, and then to get rid of her I climbed up into an oak-tree.  She never saw me, and ran on down the passage.  Of course, my only chance of getting to the station was to go by the long way.—­Half-way there I came across your mother, Susy, and she tried to stop me, and said she must speak to me.  Dear, she did seem in a state!  Evidently there’s a great deal of excitement and watching going on in that school.”