Joey gasped at the audacity of this suggestion, but Gabrielle answered composedly.
"You were the two I meant to ask, _of course_." Joey walked the rest of the way back treading on air, and refrained from swanking aggressively to either Gabrielle or Noreen when Miss Craigie invited her to come and help unpack after tea.
Afterwards, when several very big things had happened, she looked back on that blissful afternoon, and saw the result of that threefold friendship.
"_I_ think we ought to do something to celebrate Miss Craigie's return," remarked Noreen.
They were dressing for supper in Blue Dorm, Joey, Barbara, Syb, and Noreen; and as usual they were dressing in a hurry.
"What sort of thing?" Joey demanded, trying to disentangle hooks from her hair.
"Something to show we're jolly pleased she's come back. Just think, she might have died of that loathly 'flu'; lots of people have."
"Shut it, you old ghoul," ordered Barbara; "she's all right again now, thank goodness!"
"And we ought to celebrate her all-rightness," Noreen said triumphantly.
"What _do_ you want, Noreen?" Syb asked impatiently.
"How about charades after supper--and ask her to come and see them?"
"Frightfully short time to think of anything decent," objected Syb; "besides, Miss Craigie won't want to leave her dear Miss Lambton, you bet."
"P'r'aps you'd like to do some scenes from _Hamlet_, if you want to be so very high-class," Noreen suggested scornfully. Remove II. B were taking _Hamlet_ in literature, and Noreen and the Literature Mistress were usually at loggerheads.
It was that suggestion which gave Joey her idea. "I say," she burst out, "why shouldn't we do a charade on the lines of Hamlet's player-people? You know--where the poison was poured into the poor chap's ear--and ask all the Staff to come, and see whether the Professor looks guilty and shrieks, 'Lights!' because he's doing something evil with his stinks, as Noreen says, or just has a war-strain appearance. It needn't be a noisy charade to upset him if it's just strain."
Noreen thumped Joey on the back. "Topping plan! What word shall we have?"
"German?" suggested Joey. "The first syllable could be Germ, you know--those things Matron is always fussing about----"