"Cobblers' wax!" she explained airily. "Brought some with me, in case of emergency. It's useful stuff. And I just looted Linda Mottram's curling apparatus from her bedroom. Don't you twig? What blind bats you are! I'm going to stick up Maudie's desk!"
Raymonde lighted the spirit-lamp and heated the tongs, then spreading a thick coating of the wax along the inside edge of the desk, she applied the hot iron to melt it, and put down the lid.
"It will have hardened by the time Maudie has finished her constitutional among the flower beds," she giggled. "I'll guarantee when she comes back she won't be able to open her desk."
"It's only right for her to feel the pressure of public opinion," decreed Ardiune. "We're working in a good cause."
"But we're modest about it, and don't want to push ourselves forward," urged Raymonde. "I vote we go for a stroll down to the very bottom of the orchard, near the moat."
A quarter of an hour later, Miss Beasley and Miss Gibbs were sitting together in the Principal's study enjoying a well-earned period of repose and a chat. Their conversation turned upon the varied dispositions of their pupils.
"Maudie Heywood strikes me as a very earnest character," observed Miss Beasley, toying with the violets in her belt. "Her work is really excellent."
"Almost too good," agreed Miss Gibbs, who was perhaps beginning to find out that Maudie's exercises took twice as long to correct as anybody else's, and thus sensibly curtailed her teacher's leisure. "The child is so conscientious. In my opinion she needs to concentrate more on physical exercise. I should like to see her in the tennis courts instead of copying out reams of poetry."
"Yes," said Miss Beasley, looking thoughtful. "Her activities perhaps need a little adjustment. We mustn't allow her to neglect her health. She looks over-anxious sometimes for a girl of fifteen."
"She is always such a calm, self-controlled, well-regulated child," remarked Miss Gibbs appreciatively.
At that moment there was a hurried rap-tap-tap; the door opened, and Maudie burst in unannounced. Her calm self-control had yielded to an agitated condition of excitement and indignation. Her earnest eyes were flashing angry sparks, and her cheeks were crimson.