"Let him go, Belle!" she cried, wrenching at her friend's hands. "You've no right to treat him so. Let him go, I tell you!"
Micky seized the golden opportunity, and escaping from his mistress's grasp, beat a hasty retreat towards the beach, yelping with terror as he went, and upsetting the basket of blackberries in his flight.
Belle turned on Isobel in a rage.
"Look what you've done!" she exclaimed. "I wish you would mind your own business, and leave me to manage my own dog. All the blackberries have rolled over the cliff where we can't get them, and it's your fault. I hope you're sorry."
Isobel stooped to rescue the empty basket, but she did not apologize.
"I think it was as much your fault as mine," she replied. "You shouldn't have teased him. Perhaps we can pick the blackberries up again."
"No, we can't. They've fallen among the briers, and I don't mean to scratch my fingers by trying. You can stay and fish them out if you like. I'm going home."
"But we haven't had tea yet."
"I don't care. I don't want tea out of a tin mug. I shall have it comfortably at the lodgings, with a nice clean tablecloth and a serviette. I'm tired of stupid picnics." And Belle flounced away down the hill with anything but a sweet expression or a "Parisian" manner.
Isobel did not try to stop her. As the proverbial worm will turn, so there are limits to the endurance of even the most devoted of friends, and I think this afternoon she felt that Belle's conduct had reached a climax for which no excuse could be made. The latter, who considered herself both hurt in her feelings and offended in her dignity, scrambled down to the shore, and calling Micky to her heels, set off promptly for home.