"But why? Why shouldn't we make new friends in Putworth? There are nice people everywhere."
Mr. Dale shook his head. Then he surveyed the ceiling with doubtful eyes.
"Seems to me this house is not too well built," he remarked. "Just look at those cracks. A house that hasn't been standing six months! I don't understand it. Wonder I didn't see them sooner."
"It is a cracky house altogether," laughed Pattie. "There are cracks in the sitting-room as well, and all up the side of the passage. I never noticed them till to-day; at all events, I didn't see they were so big. And in my bedroom they are just as bad. It can't be helped. They don't look pretty, but we mustn't mind that. When you can spare a shilling or two, I'll get a few Japanese fans to pin over the worst of them, and then they won't matter."
"Let me look at your bedroom, dear. I did not notice anything there."
Pattie felt disinclined to go upstairs. "It doesn't signify," she said. "Lots of houses have cracks in them."
"Not new houses, like this one, only just built. They ought not."
He began to mount the staircase, and Pattie followed slowly. She wanted to see all the best points in their new home, not the worst, and she knew her father's tendency to get into a mournful mood over small discomforts. Naturally these big cracks, which oddly enough had made no previous impression, seemed less important to a young girl than to a man.
Mr. Dale went round her little bedroom, which lay above the dining-room,—his own being over the "sitting-room," so-called, while the maid slept over the kitchen. He examined the various cracks with anxious eyes, felt those that were within reach, murmured to himself, went into the other rooms on the same floor, and presently came back to Pattie, who had seated herself on the window-sill. She was too tired to remain standing. It was a rather low and wide window-sill, and afforded a comfortable seat.
"Pattie, I must have a talk with the landlord. There's something wrong. Cracks in my room, too, and in the girl's—some very bad ones. I shouldn't wonder if Mr. Cragg has been taken in somehow. He wouldn't have taken us in, I'm sure, on purpose. Those cracks weren't there when you and I first looked over the house. I know they were not. I should have seen them directly. Nor when we came last week. I believe they have all begun in the last day or two. We couldn't have overlooked them, you know. It's impossible."