“I wish I could,” she said.  “If there has been anything I regretted in the auction, besides getting all you girls into a mess, it has been my sealskin jacket.  Dad is almost certain to ask me about it, for he never made me such a handsome present before.  Poor dad! he was so proud the night he brought it home.  He said, ’Look here, Poll, I paid a whole sheaf of fivers for this, and although it cost me a good round eighty guineas, I’m told it’s cheap at the price.  Put it on and let me see how you look in it,’ he said.  And when I had it on he twisted me round, and chucked me under the chin, and said I was a ‘bouncer.’  Poor old dad!  He was as proud as Punch of me in that jacket.  I never saw anything like it.”

“Well, he can be as proud as Punch of you again.  Here is the jacket for your very own once more.  Good night.”

She walked to the door, but Miss Singleton ran after her.

“I can’t take it back,” she said.  “I’m not as mean as all that comes to.  It’s yours now; you got it as fair as possible.”

“Listen, Miss Singleton,” said Maggie.  “If I keep that jacket I shall never wear it.  I detest sealskin jackets.  It won’t be the least scrap of use to me.”

“You detest sealskin jackets?  How can you?  Oh, the lovely things they are.  Let me stroke the beauty down.”

“Stroke your beauty and pet it as much as you like, only let me say ‘Good night’ now.”

“But, please, Miss Oliphant, please, I’d do anything in the world to get the jacket back, of course.  But I’ve ten guineas of yours, and honestly I can’t pay them back.”

“Allow me to lend them to you until next term.  You can return me the money then, can you not?”

Polly’s face became on the instant a show of shining eyes, gleaming white teeth and glowing cheeks.

“Of course I could pay you back, you—­ darling,” she said with enthusiasm.  “Oh, what a relief this is to me; I’d have done anything in all the world to have my jacket back again.”

“It’s a bargain, then.  Good night, Miss Singleton.”

Maggie tossed the jacket on Polly’s bed, touched her hand lightly with one of her own and left the room.  She went quickly back to her own pretty sitting-room, locked her door, threw herself on her knees by her bureau and sobbed long and passionately.

During the few days which now remained before the end of the term no one quite knew what was wrong with Miss Oliphant.  She worked hard in preparation for her lectures and when seen in public was always very merry.  But there was a certain hardness about her mirth which her best friends detected and which caused Nancy Banister a good deal of puzzled pain.

Priscilla was treated very kindly by Maggie; she still helped her willingly with her Greek and even invited her into her room once or twice.  But all the little half-beginnings of confidence which, now and then, used to burst from Maggie’s lips, the allusions to old times, the sentences which revealed deep thoughts and high aspirations, all these, which made the essence of true friendship, vanished out of her conversation.