Perhaps already Mrs. Lovenant-Smith would have preferred Richenda Earle to Louie; there is expediency even in Authority; but the challenge, if it was that, was a public one. Mrs. Lovenant-Smith turned to Louie. "Do you know what time it is?" she asked freezingly. It pleased Louie to take Mrs. Lovenant-Smith's question _au pied de la lettre_. "I'm afraid my watch is in my cubicle. I could tell you in a moment," she said. This the Lady-in-Charge saw fit to ignore. She drew her own watch from her belt. "It is ten minutes past eleven," she said. "Students are not out of bed at ten minutes past eleven. Neither are candles burning. Miss Earle----" But again Louie interposed. After all, it was rough on the Scholarship girl. "Miss Earle came in only a moment ago to send us to bed," she affirmed, without a tremor. "Then," said Mrs. Lovenant-Smith, turning to Louie, and perhaps feeling herself once more headed off, "you, Miss Causton, as a new student, are perhaps not yet familiar with the Rules. Be so good as to come to me at ten o'clock to-morrow morning and I will explain them to you." Mrs. Lovenant-Smith did not make the discomfited rebels file out past her. She herself retired with dignity. Students do not linger in the box-room when it is made known that they are expected to go to bed at once. But no sooner had the door closed on Mrs. Lovenant-Smith's back than the pent-up general breath escaped again in a fluttering exhalation. In it were awe, delight, homage. "Oh, Causton!" somebody breathed. "You _are_ a brick!" "_Isn't_ she?" "Wasn't it stunning of her?" "You'd have caught it, Earle!" "I saw it in her eye!" "But I say, Causton, you'll get a wigging!" "She didn't speak to you, you know!" "You cut in----" Louie felt quite confused, so much did they make of so little. "Good gracious," she said, "what are you all talking about? That's nothing, especially as I was thinking of leaving in any case to-morrow." There was consternation in the box-room. Had Rebellion found its leader only to lose her again immediately? "Leaving!" "Oh, I sha'n't leave till after ten o'clock now, you may be sure," Louie laughed. "But--oh, I _say_!" The dismayed voices dropped. There was a blank silence. It was only after half-a-minute that Burnett Minor, who had issued from cover again, begged: "Don't leave, Causton." "Oh, I shouldn't leave because of anything like this," said Louie, enormously amused at the thought. "The place is a fraud--that's why I should leave." "Oh, don't leave," another girl begged. "Well, we'll see what she says to-morrow." "She can't be _too_ down on you----" "Not the first time----" Something that can only be described as a pleasant hardening came into Louie's grey eyes. Her laugh dropped a note. She looked at the adoring faces. "That's just what I mean," she said. "If she _is_----" "What?----" "I'll stay." And that also her stepfather would have described as "just like Louie." III