The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark Page 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 crossexaminer.
    "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."
    "Which arm?" Sandy snapped.
    "The right of course, he hasn't got a left."
    "Were you inside or outside the room when you saw them?" Sandy said.
    "Well, in and out. I saw them, I tell you."
    "What did they say?" Jenny said.
    "They didn't see me," said Monica. "I just turned and ran away."
    "Was it a long and lingering kiss?" Sandy demanded, while Jenny came closer to hear the answer.
    Monica cast the corner of her eye up to the ceiling as if doing mental arithmetic. Then when her calculation was finished she said, "Yes it was."
    "How do you know if you didn't stop to see how long it was?"
    "I know," said Monica, getting angry, "by the bit that I did see. It was a small bit of a good long kiss that I saw, I could see it by his arm being round her, andâââ"
    "I don't believe all this," Sandy said squeakily, because she was excited and desperately trying to prove the report true by eliminating the doubts. "You must have been dreaming," she said.
    Monica pecked with the fingers of her right hand at Sandy's arm, and pinched the skin of it with a nasty half-turn. Sandy screamed. Monica, whose face was becoming very red, swung the attaché case which held her books, so that it hit the girls who stood in its path and made them stand back from