Cyril and Robert were boys, and boys never cry, of course. Still, the position was a terrible one, and I do not wonder that they made faces in their efforts to behave in a really manly way.
And at this awful moment mother’s bell rang.
A breathless stillness held the children. Then Anthea dried her eyes. She looked round her and caught up the poker. She held it out to Cyril.
‘Hit my hand hard,’ she said; ‘I must show mother some reason for my eyes being like they are. Harder,’ she cried as Cyril gently tapped her with the iron handle. And Cyril, agitated and trembling, nerved himself to hit harder, and hit very much harder than he intended.
Anthea screamed.
‘Oh, Panther, I didn’t mean to hurt, really,’ cried Cyril, clattering the poker back into the fender.
‘It’s—all—right,’ said Anthea breathlessly, clasping the hurt hand with the one that wasn’t hurt; ‘it’s—getting—red.’
It was—a round red and blue bump was rising on the back of it. ‘Now, Robert,’ she said, trying to breathe more evenly, ‘you go out—oh, I don’t know where—on to the dustbin—anywhere—and I shall tell mother you and the Lamb are out.’
Anthea was now ready to deceive her mother for as long as ever she could. Deceit is very wrong, we know, but it seemed to Anthea that it was her plain duty to keep her mother from being frightened about the Lamb as long as possible. And the Phoenix might help.
‘It always has helped,’ Robert said; ‘it got us out of the tower, and even when it made the fire in the theatre it got us out all right. I’m certain it will manage somehow.’