She turned and started to walk away, but not very eagerly. Jacqueline mastered the desire to shake her, got up, and went after her.
“Now don’t get peeved,” she told Eleanor. “I’ve got a most special reason why I want to see—er—Jacqueline.”
“Well, what of it?” Eleanor muttered ungraciously, but without walking on.
“It’s a great secret,” Jacqueline admitted. “Maybe some day I’ll tell you.” She smiled—and you may remember that she had a quite bewitching smile.
“Will you tell me? Honest and truly?” Eleanor asked.
“Cross my heart and hope to die if I don’t,” Jacqueline rattled off glibly. “There’s a mystery—and I’ll let you in on it some time—if you’ll only tell me where she’s gone.”
“Oh, dear!” whined Eleanor. “But I don’t know.”
“Don’t know?” repeated Jacqueline blankly, while once more the green world seemed to rock beneath her.
“She didn’t tell me,” Eleanor explained in an injured tone. “She cooey’d over the hedge, and said they were going off, so we couldn’t play tea party in the afternoon, and they went in the limousine with the trunks in the carrier, and Sallie and Hannah—that’s the cook—went on a vacation, and she said the beach, but she didn’t say what beach, and Mildred was all dressed up in a sailor suit with such a ducky hat, and——”
“When did they go?” Jacqueline stemmed the torrent of words.