Griffin, who was winking at her behind Elinor's back in a particularly portentous fashion, turned to the door.
"Calm down, Miss Pat," she said, with her hand on the knob. "I'm going to corral a few of the elect and put it to them. Brace up and look pleasant by the time I get back."
Patricia was about to break into angry tears on Elinor's neck, but the brisk and significant air with which Griffin spoke roused her to herself again. She put Elinor's arms away, and going to the mirror, smoothed her tumbled hair, and whisked away the telltale traces of her collapse, while Elinor sat quietly on the edge of the couch watching her with fond anxiety.
Not a word was spoken till the door opened again, and Griffin with Doris Leighton and Miss Green came quickly in.
Doris Leighton, who was flushed and animated, went directly up to Elinor.
"It's a shame," she said, with a marked effort to subdue her own complacency. "Everybody knows you are much too conscientious to do such a thing. I've told everybody how shocked I am that Mr. Benton should make such a horrid mistake. It's simply a thought wave, and I've told everyone that you're not at all to blame."
Elinor looked at her very calmly, and said with a tinge of amusement in her level voice, "You must be very thankful that you got your study in first, for then you would have had to congratulate me instead of commiserating me."
Patricia felt rather ashamed of Elinor's lack of response to what she considered Doris' loyal support, and she broke out gratefully, "You'll tell them all, won't you? They'll soon understand if you tell them!"
She had her reward in Doris' dazzling smile, and her assurances that she would do all she could to make Elinor's vindication speedy and thorough.
Elinor was more cordial to Miss Green's solemn and indignant protest against the powers that be. The stout monitor had so much genuine good feeling that the sincerity of her wrath could not be doubted.
"It is most unfair, unfair, Miss Kendall," she reiterated, with her two dewlaps solemnly wagging to and fro. "It is most unprofessional of Mr. Benton, and, even if you had copied (which of course no one dreams of saying), it would still be most indelicate to expose a student directly to the publicity of such a reprimand. I deplore it. I deplore it most heartily. And your manner of receiving the unmerited rebuke has made me admire you more than I can say."