Hammond was absent about ten minutes; they seemed like so many hours to anxious Prissie.  To her horror she saw him returning alone, and now she so far forgot her muddy boots as to run two or three steps to meet him.  She knocked over a footstool as she did so, and one or two people looked round and shrugged their shoulders at the poor gauche girl.

“Where is she?” exclaimed Prissie, again speaking in a loud voice.  “Oh, haven’t you brought her?  What shall I do?”

“It’s all right, I assure you, Miss Peel.  Let me conduct you back to that snug seat in the window.  I have seen Miss Merton, and she says you are to make yourself happy.  She asked Miss Heath’s permission for you both to be absent from dinner to-day.”

“She did?  I never heard of anything so outrageous.  I won’t stay.  I shall go away at once.”

“Had you not better just think calmly over it?  If you return to St. Benet’s without Miss Merton, you will get her into a scrape.”

“Do you think I care for that?  Oh, she has behaved disgracefully!  She has told Miss Heath a lie.  I shall explain matters the very moment I go back.”

Priscilla was not often in a passion, but she felt in one now.  She lost her shyness and her voice rose without constraint.

“I am not supposed to know the ways of society,” she said, “but I don’t think I want to know much about this sort of society.”  And she got up, prepared to leave the room.

The ladies, who had been gossiping at her side, turned at the sound of her agitation.  They saw a plain, badly dressed girl, with a frock conveniently short for the muddy streets, but by no means in tone with her present elegant surroundings, standing up and contradicting, or at least appearing to contradict, Geoffrey Hammond, one of the best known men at St. Hilda’s, a Senior Wrangler, too.  What did this gauche girl mean?  Most people were deferential to Hammond, but she seemed to be scolding him.

Prissie for the time being became more interesting even than the winter fashions.  The ladies drew a step or two nearer to enjoy the little comedy.

Priscilla noticed no one, but Hammond felt these good ladies in the air.  His cheeks burned and he wished himself well out of his present position.

“If you will sit down, Miss Peel,” he said in a low, firm voice, “I think I can give you good reasons for not rushing away in this headlong fashion.”

“Well, what are they?” said Prissie.  Hammond’s voice had a sufficiently compelling power to make her sit down once more on her window-ledge.

“Don’t you think,” he said, seating himself in front of her, “that we may as well keep this discussion to ourselves?”

“Oh, yes; was I speaking too loud?  I wouldn’t vex you for anything.”

“Pardon me; you are still speaking a little loud.”

“Oh!” Poor Prissie fell back, her face crimson.  “Please say anything you wish,” she presently piped in a voice as low as a little mouse might have used.