But if she doesn't return to gratify the curiosity of the puzzled group on the rustic-seat, somebody else does.
Jacky, panting, dishevelled, out of breath with quick running rushes up to them, and precipitates himself upon his mother.
"It's all right," he cries, triumphantly. "He didn't do a bit to her. I watched him all the time and he never touched her."
"Who? What?" demands the bewildered Julia. But Jacky disdains explanations.
"He only talked, and talked, and talked," he goes on, fluently; "and he said she did awful things to him. And he made her swear at him—and—and—"
"What?" says Sir Mark.
"It's impossible to know anybody," sighs Dicky Browne, regretfully, shaking his head at this fresh instance of the frailty of humanity. "Who could have believed Dulce capable of using bad language? I hope her school-children and her Sunday class won't hear it, poor little things. It would shake their faith forever."
"How do you know he is talking of Dulce?" says Julia, impatiently. "Jacky, how dare you say dear Dulce swore at any one?"
"He made her," says Jacky.
"He must have behaved awfully bad to her," says Dicky, gravely.