Elfrida stopped and shut her eyes tight.
“Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t!” she said. “I won’t be cross, I won’t be cross, I won’t be cross! Pax. Drop it. Don’t let’s!”
“Don’t let’s what?”
“Quarrel about nothing,” said Elfrida, opening her eyes and walking on very fast. “We’re always doing it. Auntie says it’s a habit. If boys are so much splendider than girls, they ought to be able to stop when they like.”
“Suppose they don’t like?” said he, kicking his boots in the thick, white dust.
“Well,” said she, “I’ll say I’m sorry first. Will that do?”
“I was just going to say it first myself,” said Edred, in aggrieved tones. “Come on,” he added more generously, “here’s the sign-post. Let’s see what it says.”
It said, quite plainly and without any nonsense about it, that they had come a mile and three-quarters, adding, most unkindly, that it was eight miles to Arden Castle. But, it said, it was a quarter of a mile to Ardenhurst Station.
“Let’s go by train,” said Edred grandly.
“No money,” said Elfrida, very forlornly indeed.