‘I didn’t know; I didn’t think she’d care,’ says Betty, in a frightened tone. ‘We often teased her before;’ and she might have said more, but an attack of sneezing lays her low.
‘But before a stranger!’ says Carew anxiously. ‘I am afraid, Mr. Crosby, it is because you were here.’
‘It isn’t a bit like Susan to care like that,’ says Dom. ‘I say’—contritely—‘I’m awfully sorry. I wonder where she is, Betty.’
‘In the summer-house. She always goes there when she’s vexed or worried.’
‘Why don’t you go to her, then?’
‘I can’t. I’ve a cold. I’ll wait awhile,’ says Betty, holding back.
‘I think, as it has been my fault,’ says Crosby quietly, ‘that I had better be the one to apologize. Where is this summer-house of which you speak?’
‘Right round there,’ says Betty eagerly, pointing to the corner of the house.
‘Just behind the rose-trees,’ says Dom, giving him a friendly push forward.
‘You can’t miss her,’ says Carew, who is dying to give him an encouraging clap on the shoulder. They are all evidently very anxious to get the task of ‘making it up’ with Susan on to any other shoulders than their own.