"I wonder if it is rude to go away?" she said. "Do you think we ought to go back?"
"It is never any use going back," said Harry. "Certainly, in this case it would not do. They would think——" and a sudden boldness came over him; "they would think we had quarrelled."
Evie laughed.
"That would never do," she said, "for I feel just now as if you were an ally, my only one. What strange things Mrs. Antrobus says! Perhaps they are clever?" She made this suggestion hopefully, without any touch of sarcasm.
"Most probably," said Harry. "That would be an excellent reason, anyhow, for my finding them quite impossible to understand."
"Don't you understand them? Then we certainly are allies. You know I asked my aunt last night whether she was at all mad, and she seemed surprised that I should think so. But, really, when a woman says that she wishes she had been her own mother, because she would have been so much easier to manage than her daughter—what does it all mean?" she asked.
"Oh, she's not mad," said Harry. "It is only a way she has. There are lots of people like her. I don't mind it myself: you only have to laugh; there is no necessity for saying anything."
"And as little opportunity," remarked Evie.
She paused, then pulled a long piece of feathery grass from its sheath.