He played Lorraine's accompaniments easily at sight, with a delicacy of touch and an artistic rendering such as Rosemary had never put into them. It inspired Lorraine, and yet half humiliated her; she was a painstaking but not a very clever student of the violin; no touch of genius ever flowed from her fingers. To listen to Morland was to gain a glimpse of a new musical world in which he flew on wings and she stumbled on crutches. She sighed as she threw down her violin, for she had all the ambition that he unfortunately lacked. CHAPTER V A Question of Discipline At school Claudia rapidly became one of Lorraine's best allies. She made no undue fuss, but she could always be depended upon for support. Being a new girl, she was more ready to take up new ways than were the other monitresses, who remembered the régime of Lily Anderson, and were inclined to judge everything by former standards. The chief bone of contention was the bar between seniors and juniors. Hitherto it had not been etiquette for the upper and lower school to mix more than was absolutely necessary; the elder girls had held themselves aloof, and even in the too numerous guilds and societies had insisted upon senior and junior branches. Having broken the ice with the social gathering, at which every one alike showed exhibits, Lorraine began to run all her organizations on more popular lines. She persuaded a few volunteers to superintend the little girls' games; she set aside two special pages for their efforts in the manuscript magazine, and allowed them to vote for their own captain in their basket-ball club. These fresh departures did not pass without opposition. Some of her colleagues hinted broadly that Lorraine was making a bid for popularity. "Monitresses should be loyal to the Sixth!" sniffed Vivien. "We don't want to mix with Dick, Tom and Harry!" "Don't you?" laughed Patsie, who never could resist a shot at Vivien. "I should have thought it was just Dick, Tom and Harry you wanted to mix with, and you're disgusted because it's only Maud, Gertie and Florrie! Honestly, you'd be far happier in a boys' school. You'd better get your mother to send you to one!" "There's such a thing as co-education!" retorted Vivien. "So there is!" chuckled Patsie. She chuckled thoughtfully, for Vivien's remark had given her an idea. She confided it to Audrey, who was rather a chum of hers. "I'm a little fed up with the Duchess," she remarked, "and I want to play a rag on her. I _must_ play a rag on somebody, for things have been _so_ dull lately, and the school wants livening up. She said something about co-education." "What's co-education?" asked Audrey vaguely.