I do wish you could all go with me."
"Fun?" echoed Kathleen dismally and doubting.
"Perfectly killing," Gerald asserted resolutely. "Now, you just
listen to what I say to Mademoiselle and Eliza, and back me up for
all you're worth.
"But," said Mabel, "you can't mean that you're going to leave me
alone directly we get out, and go off with those horrible creatures.
They look like fiends."
"You wait till you've seen them close," Gerald advised. "Why, they
re just ordinary the first thing one of them did was to ask me to
recommend it to a good hotel! I couldn't understand it at first,
because it has no roof to its mouth, of course."
It was a mistake to say that, Gerald knew it at once.
Mabel and Kathleen were holding hands in a way that plainly
showed how a few moments ago they had been clinging to each
other in an agony of terror. Now they clung again. And Jimmy,
who was sitting on the edge of what had been the stage, kicking his
boots against the pink counterpane, shuddered visibly.
"It doesn't matter," Gerald explained "about the roofs, I mean; you
soon get to understand. I heard them say I was a gentlemanly lad as
I was coming away. They wouldn't have cared to notice a little
thing like that if they'd been fiends, you know."
"It doesn't matter how gentlemanly they think you; if you don't see
me home you aren't, that's all.
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