“This,” said Mr. Gubbins, without moving a muscle of his face, “was only a wisdom tooth. They come out easier.” CHAPTER VII Miss Strickland had great self-control, and she needed it. When her amazed eyes rested upon Elsie and Peter Gubbins, she could hardly believe them. Disobedience and deceit united for purposes of pleasure had never so flaunted themselves before her in the whole course of her career. For a week she had believed Elsie and Peter to be crushed. Crushed as flat as a black beetle under the heel of a self-respecting cook. For a moment she was almost too astonished to be angry. How had they dared? They who in general dared so little—to rush upon the knife? But her surprise was swiftly reinforced by anger. She was in a consecrated building and the oratorio had begun—so she remained perfectly still although her figure became charged like an electric battery. All the six pupils of Miss Bretherton received small invigorating shocks from it. They knew something was wrong—and not with them. After all the Messiah was not going to be such a bore as they had feared. They followed the direction of Miss Strickland’s eyes and arrived at Elsie and Peter. The opening chorus might have been a Salute to Adventurers. Solemnly and gloatingly the pupils gazed at the desperate couple. Peter and Elsie felt all these hostile eyes converging upon them, and they saw nothing else. The tenderness of the massed violins in the Pastoral Symphony (they were not quite tender enough, but it is difficult for amateur violins to be tender, and it is even more difficult for them to be sufficiently massed) did nothing whatever to soften the atmosphere. It would have been as useful to try the effect of Handel’s music upon terriers in a rat hunt. The hunt went on from end to end of the Messiah. It was conducted in silence by seven pairs of eyes, led by Miss Strickland. The girls ought to have been upon the side of the rats. They had no quarrel with Elsie Andrews, who had left School before their time, they knew Mr. Gubbins by sight and were without personal claims upon him even in the realms of fancy. All of them disliked Miss Strickland, and yet none of them refrained from the pursuit of the stricken quarry. They could barely wait for the unearthly shrieks of the Hallelujah Chorus, the separate clauses of which went off like corks from a bottle, before they knelt for a respectful and non-committal moment in the direction of the Altar, and proceeded to bear down upon the delinquents through the main aisle of the Cathedral. They thrilled with ecstasy at the resonant and piercing voice of Miss Strickland when she said aloud in the sacred building “Elsie!” In another moment they would have been upon the culprits had not a remorseless family of nine interfered between them and their prey. Breathless, they hacked their way to the door, only to see Elsie and Peter arm-in-arm disappearing round a corner.