Mabel hands up the clothes and the sticks.
"There's lots of room," says Kathleen; "its tail goes down into the
ground. It's like a secret passage."
"Suppose something comes out of it and jumps out at you," says
Mabel, and Kathleen hurriedly descends.
The explanations to Mademoiselle promise to be difficult, but, as
Kathleen said afterwards, any little thing is enough to take a
grown-up's attention off. A figure passes the window just as they
are explaining that it really did look exactly like an uncle that the
boys have gone to London with.
"Who's that?" says Mademoiselle suddenly, pointing, too, which
everyone knows is not manners.
It is the bailiff coming back from the doctor's with antiseptic
plaster on that nasty cut that took so long a-bathing this morning.
They tell her it is the bailiff at Yalding Towers, and she says,
"Ciel!" (Sky!) and asks no more awkward questions about the
boys. Lunch very late is a silent meal. After lunch Mademoiselle
goes out, in a hat with many pink roses, carrying a rose-lined
parasol. The girls, in dead silence, organize a dolls tea-party, with
real tea. At the second cup Kathleen bursts into tears. Mabel, also
weeping, embraces her.
"I wish," sobs Kathleen, "oh, I do wish I knew where the boys
were! It would be such a comfort."
Gerald knew where the boys were, and it was no comfort to him at
all.
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