"I'm not being a liar. I might be a make-believer, perhaps, but I shan't say if I am. Nobody knows where those rings came from. Papa himself doesn't know."
"I shall go and ask him this minute myself." Jimmy walked firmly to the door, paused, and added, "And lying is the same as make-believing."
He found his father, and asked him if he knew where those rings that Netta had came from.
"No," said his father, "I told her I didn't."
Jimmy was disappointed. "Lying and make-believing are the same thing, aren't they?" he said.
"Not at all the same thing." This was yet another disappointment. Later in the day Jimmy went to Netta and said that she really ought to give him one of those rings as he was her brother. She refused. He then asked if he might look inside the temple at them again. Once more he was refused.
"It is not a good thing," said Netta, gravely, "to look at them too much in one day."
"It seems as if I couldn't do anything or have anything, or play at anything," said Jimmy, gloomily. Netta, being tender-hearted, relented, and allowed him to look once more.
Netta had girl-friends of her own age. They were Dorothy, and Cecilia Vane, and Rose Heritage. Netta told them about the magic rings, and they were all deeply impressed.
A ritual sprang up. Netta was the priestess and Rose Heritage was the under-priestess. It became necessary always to wave a green leaf slowly over the temple before opening it. Every morning the magic rings were taken out and placed for a few minutes in a basin of pure water. Then they were dried and put back again in the temple. Dorothy Vane, who read deeply, suggested amulets, and they were made at once. Each girl wore round her neck a gold thread—it had come off a box of crackers—and to the thread was attached a small square of white cardboard, on which three circles had been drawn. Netta and Rose had amulets on which the circles were drawn in red chalk. Dorothy and Cecilia had to be content with black ink. But it was understood that after a certain time Dorothy would be raised to the position of under-priestess, and then she also would have the red-chalk privilege. The amulets were to be worn under the dress, and to be shown to no one. The secrecy observed was tremendous. Nobody was to know anything. When engaged with the magic rings, Christian names were forbidden. Netta was addressed as the priestess and Rose as the under-priestess; Dorothy was called One and Cecilia Two. Of course, Two was the least honourable position. It had been assigned to Cecilia because, owing to her sweet and gentle disposition, she consented to take it—which none of the other three would have done. Jimmy was by unanimous vote left out of it altogether. They would ask him if he would not go and play in the garden, like a kind boy, because they had some private secrets to talk about; and if he came suddenly into the room where they were they hid things hurriedly and talked ostentatiously about the weather. This maddened Jimmy. Sometimes he said that he knew all about it, and at other times pointed out to Netta that the claims of their relationship required that she should tell him all about it, and at other times that he did not want to know. Occasionally he threatened to throw the temple and the magic rings (he called them "old curtain-rings," but that was only his offensiveness) into the duck-pond. He did not do it. The devotees were four in number, and he was only one, and foolhardiness is not courage. "Anyhow," he said, "if you weren't doing wrong, you'd let me into it, and so you're certain to be punished. I have got secrets of my own and mine are not wrong, but I shan't say anything about them." But he prevailed nothing.