Are you going to?" Mabel
demanded.
"Of course I am. We shall have no end of a lark. Now for
Mademoiselle."
He had put on his coat as he spoke and now ran up the stairs. The
others, herding in the hall, could hear his light-hearted there
s-nothing-unusual-the-matter-whatever-did-you-bolt-like-that-for
knock at Mademoiselle's door, the reassuring "It's only me Gerald,
you know," the pause, the opening of the door, and the low-voiced
parley that followed; then Mademoiselle and Gerald at Eliza's
door, voices of reassurance; Eliza's terror, bluntly voluble, tactfully
soothed.
"Wonder what lies he's telling them," Jimmy grumbled.
"Oh! not lies," said Mabel; "he's only telling them as much of the
truth as it's good for them to know."
"If you'd been a man," said Jimmy witheringly, "you'd have been a
beastly Jesuit, and hid up chimneys."
"If I were only just a boy," Mabel retorted, "I shouldn't be scared
out of my life by a pack of old coats."
"I'm so sorry you were frightened," Gerald's honeyed tones floated
down the staircase; "we didn't think about you being frightened.
And it was a good trick, wasn't it?"
"There!" whispered Jimmy, "he's been telling her it was a trick of
ours."
"Well, so it was," said Mabel stoutly.
"It was indeed a wonderful trick," said Mademoiselle; "and how
did you move the mannikins?"
"Oh, we've often done it with strings, you know," Gerald
explained.
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