‘Betty, when I fall in love with you I’ll present you with a course of goodies,’ says Dominick, regarding that damsel with an encouraging eye.
‘I have no admirers, as you all know,’ says Susan, her pale and lovely face a little heightened in colour. She is thinking with horror of what would have happened if that poor awful thief had brought them in person. But, of course, he was afraid.
‘Perhaps Lady Millbank sent them,’ suggests Betty, after a violent discussion with Fitzgerald on the head of his last remark. ‘I saw her in town yesterday.’
‘So did I,’ says Carew. ‘Like a sack—not tied in the middle.’
Susan feels almost inclined in the emergencies of the moment to say ‘Perhaps so,’ and let it stand at that, but conscience forbids her.
‘She would have sent a footman and her card,’ says she dejectedly. ‘No’—decidedly, and preparing to close up the basket—‘they are not meant for me, and even if they were, I could not accept them, unless I knew where they came from.’
‘Do you mean that you are not going to give us some?’ says Betty, rising, not only figuratively, but actually, to the occasion, and standing over Susan. ‘I never heard anything so mean in all my life.’
‘Susan,’ says Fitzgerald mildly but firmly, ‘if you think to escape alive from this spot with these cherries, let me at once warn you of a sense of impending danger.’
‘Oh, I say, Susan, don’t be a fool!’ says Carew, turning his lazy length upon the grass, a manœuvre that brings him much closer to Susan and the cherries.
‘It’s a beastly shame!’ says Jacky, in a growl. And at this little Tom, as if moved to the very soul, or stomach, sets up a piteous howl.