“I am surprised at you, Sandy,” said Miss Brodie. “I thought you were the leaven in the lump.”

Sandy looked up from her coughs with a hypocritical blinking of her eyes. Miss Brodie, however, had already fastened on Mary Macgregor who was nearest to her. Mary’s giggles had been caused by contagion, for she was too stupid to have any sex-wits of her own, and Mr. Lloyd’s lesson would never have affected her unless it had first affected the rest of the class. But now she was giggling openly like a dirty-minded child of an uncultured home. Miss Brodie grasped Mary’s arm, jerked her to her feet and propelled her to the door where she thrust her outside and shut her out, returning as one who had solved the whole problem. As indeed she had, for the violent action sobered the girls and made them feel that, in the official sense, an unwanted ring-leader had been apprehended and they were no longer in the wrong.

As Mr. Lloyd had now switched his equipment to a depiction of the Madonna and Child, Miss Brodie’s action was the more appreciated, for no one in the class would have felt comfortable at being seized with giggles while Mr. Lloyd’s pointer was tracing the outlines of this sacred subject. In fact, they were rather shocked that Mr. Lloyd’s hoarse voice did not change its tone in the slightest for this occasion, but went on stating what the painter had done with his brush; he was almost defiant in his methodical tracing of lines all over the Mother and the Son. Sandy caught his glance towards Miss Brodie as if seeking her approval for his very artistic attitude and Sandy saw her smile back as would a goddess with superior understanding smile to a god away on the mountain tops.

It was not long after this that Monica Douglas, later famous for mathematics and anger, claimed that she had seen Mr. Lloyd in the act of kissing Miss Brodie. She was very definite about it in her report to the five other members of the Brodie set. There was a general excited difficulty in believing her.

“When?”

“Where?”

“In the art room after school yesterday.”

“What were you doing in the art room?” said Sandy who took up the role of cross-examiner.

“I went to get a new sketch pad.”

“Why? You haven’t finished your old sketch pad yet.”

“I have,” said Monica.

“When did you use up your old sketch pad?”

“Last Saturday afternoon when you were playing golf with Miss Brodie.”

It was true that Jenny and Sandy had done nine holes on the Braid Hills course with Miss Brodie on the previous Saturday, while the rest of the Brodie set wandered afield to sketch.

“Monica used up all her book. She did the Tee Woods from five angles,” said Rose Stanley in verification.

“What part of the art room were they standing in?” Sandy said.

“The far side,” Monica said. “I know he had his arm round her and was kissing her. They jumped apart when I opened the door.”