There were twenty other candidates awaiting the ordeal, in various stages of nervousness or sangfroid.

Some looked dejected, some confident, and others hid their feelings under a mask of stolidity.

Winona joined them shyly.

They were all unknown to one another, and so far nobody had plucked up courage to venture a remark.

It is horribly depressing to sit on a form staring at twenty taciturn strangers.