“She’s gone right enough,” said Edred, “and now we’ll never know. And just when she was going to tell us where it was. I do think it’s too jolly stupid for anything.”
“A LADY IN CRIMSON AND ERMINE WITH A GOLD CROWN.”
“It’s you that’s too jolly stupid for anything,” said Elfrida hotly. “What did you want to go asking her about her silly clothes for? It was that did it. She’d have told us where it was before now if you hadn’t taken her time up with clothes. As if clothes mattered! I do wish to goodness you’d sometimes try to behave as if you’d got some sense.”
“Go it!” said Edred bitterly. “As if everything wasn’t tiresome enough. Now there’s another three days to wait, because of your nagging. Oh, it’s just exactly like a girl, so it is!”
“I’m—I’m sorry,” said Elfrida, awestricken. “Let’s do something good to make up. I’ll give you that note-book of mine with the lead-pointed mother-of-pearl pencil, and we’ll go round to all the cottages and find out which are leaky, so as to be ready to patch them up when we’ve got the treasure.”
“I don’t want to be good,” said Edred bitterly. “I haven’t quarrelled and put everything back, but I’m going to now,” he said, with determination. “I don’t see why everything should be smashed up and me not said any of the things I want to say.”
“Oh, don’t!” cried Elfrida; “it’s bad enough to quarrel when you don’t want to, but to set out to quarrel! Don’t!”
Edred didn’t. He kicked the dust up with his boots, and the two went back to the Castle in gloomy silence.
At the gate Edred paused. “I’ll make it up now if you like,” he said. “I’ve only just thought of it—but perhaps it’s three days from the end of the quarrel.”