"I'm thankful," Miss Vigers was unusually talkative, "deeply thankful that she's gone. An impossible young woman. Oh, no--you couldn't call her a girl. Would any girl--any English girl--conceivably behave as she has? They have begun to imitate her, of course. That was to be expected. She demoralised the school. It will take me a month to get things straight. I have three children in bed to-day. Headaches? Fiddlesticks! Over-eating! I suppose you heard that there was a midnight feast last night?" The Common-room opened its eyes. "I'm not astonished. A farewell gathering, I suppose! I'm sure it's not the first," said Clare, her eyes alight with amusement. "But go on. How did you find it out?" "Miss Marsham informed me of it," said Henrietta, with desperate calmness. "It appears that Cynthia asked her permission. Miss Marsham--er--contributed a cake. Seed!" Clare gurgled. "This is priceless. Did she tell you? I wonder she had the face." Henrietta grew pink. "No. Cynthia herself. She--er--offered me a slice. She had the impertinence--the entirely American impertinence--to come to my room--after midnight--to borrow a tooth-glass. To eat ices in. It appeared that they were short of receptacles." "Ices?" came the chorus. "Her mother provided them, I believe. In a pail," said Henrietta stiffly. "Did you lend the tooth-glass?" asked Clare. Henrietta coughed. "It was difficult to refuse. She had bare feet. I did not wish her to catch cold." Clare turned away abruptly. Her shoulders shook. "I do not wish to be unjust. I do not think she was intentionally insubordinate." Henrietta fingered one of the tall pink roses that had appeared on her desk that morning. "I believe she meant well." "She was a dear!" said the little gym mistress. "She was an impossible young woman," retorted Henrietta with spirit. "At the same time----" "At the same time?" Clare spoke with unusual friendliness. "She certainly had a way with her," said Henrietta. CHAPTER XV Cynthia Griffiths had set a fashion. Her kewpie hair-ribbons and abbreviated blouses were an unofficial uniform long after she had ceased, probably, to know that such articles of dress existed. Her slang phrases incorporated themselves in the school vocabulary. Her deeds of derring-do were imitated from afar. To have been on intimate terms with her would have been an impressive distinction, had not every member of the school been able to lay claim to it. For Cynthia's jolly temperament laughed at schoolgirl etiquette, could never be brought to realise the existence of caste and clique. She darted into their lives and out again, like a dragon-fly through a cloud of gnats. It was not strange that her beauty, her prodigality, in conjunction with the all-excusing fact of her nationality, should have attracted the weather-cock enthusiasm of her companions: should have made her, short as her career had been, the rage.