“Well, this morning we played leap-frog down the stairs. That was a little idea of Bill’s.”
Luke had noticed at lunch that two of the guests wore sticking-plaster on their noses. This explained it.
“I don’t think I should like playing leap-frog,” he said. “I sometimes play at boats with Dot.”
“We’ll play at hide-and-seek,” said Jona. “You and I will hide together. Come along.”
They hid in the cool dusk of the tool-shed. Jona sat on the wheelbarrow and talked, and talked, and talked.
At the end of half-an-hour, Luke had failed to ask her what she had meant by certain things on the day that she had called at his office. He made rather a specialty of not being able to say anything that he particularly wanted to say.
He said: “It’s funny they’ve not found us yet.”
“Not so very funny,” said Jona. “You see, I forgot to tell any of them that we were going to play this game. Here’s one of the gardeners coming. Damn. I suppose we’d better join the rest of the crowd.”
It was not until Mabel and Luke were leaving that Luke got a chance of another word with Jona.
“We’re leaving for town to-morrow,” said Jona. “You’ll write and tell me everything that’s in your old head, won’t you?”