'You go away,' Jean was gasping in a choked voice. 'I've done this for two years, and I'm not going to give up doing it now.'
'You told me yourself I'd got to do it, and I'm not going away till it's done, so there!' laughed Barbara, in reply.
She made another dash at the foot between them, and the head girl again nearly lost her balance. 'Stop quarrelling, and leave my foot alone, you naughty little wretches!' cried Margaret, stamping her disengaged foot vigorously. Jean, with two years of discipline behind her, awoke suddenly to the voice of authority and started to her feet, covered with terror at the enormity of her offence. But Babs uttered a yell of delight at finding the victory so easily won.
'Why don't you unlace somebody else's boots?' she shouted defiantly to her adversary. 'There's lots of boots round here waiting to be unlaced.'
Margaret stooped down and lifted her up bodily, and set her on her feet beside Jean.
'Now,' she said sternly, 'what do you both mean by behaving in this disgraceful manner?'
Neither of them answered her. Jean hung her head and looked as if she were going to cry every minute, and Barbara waited to see what would happen next. It did not seem to her that she had done anything so very dreadful, and she wondered why no one saw how funny it all was. Ruth Oliver was looking the other way, so she could not see her face; but the rest of them seemed just as serious about it as the head girl herself.
'Haven't you anything to say for yourselves?' demanded Margaret.
Hot, angry tears began to well up into Jean's eyes. She never knew she could have hated any one so much as she hated this new girl for coming between her and Margaret Hulme. Barbara caught sight of her tears, and the desire to laugh suddenly left her.
'You see, we didn't know who had got to unlace your boots,' she explained hastily. 'It isn't that it's such an awfully jolly thing to unlace people's boots, but----'
'Oh, that's it, is it?' interrupted Margaret, crushingly. 'Then you needn't be in the same difficulty any more on my account, for in future I shall unlace my own boots. Now, go away and do your preparation at once, and don't let me see either of you again for the rest of the day.'