‘You don’t know where the castle is,’ Rupert objected.
‘Yes, I do,’ said Caroline; ‘so there! William said the day of the Rupert hunt—he said, “I hoped the boy’d got into the castle grounds. Milord’s men ’ud have sent Poad about his business pretty sharp if he’d gone trespassing there.” So it can’t be far off.’
‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Charlotte. ‘You know uncle said the day after we’d been Rosicurians would we like the carriage to go and see Mr. Penfold, only we didn’t, because we knew he’d gone to Canterbury. Now if we could only persuade William that going to see Lord Andore is the same thing as going to see Mr. Penfold, and that to-day is the same as the other day, well then—— People think so much more of you if you go in a carriage—servants, I mean, and people who don’t know about sterling worth, and its being better to be good than pretty, and all not being gold that glitters.’
‘And what will you do when you get there?’ Rupert asked doubtfully.
‘Why, give him a bunch of magic flowers, and tell him about the Mineral woman.’
‘You’ll look very silly,’ Rupert told her, ‘driving up to a lord’s house with your two-penny-halfpenny flowers, when he’s got acres of glass most likely.’
‘I don’t care if he’s got miles of glass, and vineries and pineries of every modern inconvenience. He hasn’t got flowers that grow as true and straight as the ones in the wonderful garden. Thomas told me nobody had in all the country-side. And they’re magic flowers, ours are. Oh, Rupert, I wish you wouldn’t be so grown-up.’
‘I’m not,’ said Rupert; ‘it’s you that’s silly.’
‘You’re always being different from what we’d made up our minds you were,’ said Charlotte hotly; ‘there, now it’s out. We were sorry for you at first. And then we liked you; you were so adventurous and splendid. And then you catch a cold and go all flat. Why do you do it?’
‘Non semper vivens arcus,’ said Rupert, and Charles hung on his words. ‘You can’t be always the same. It would be dull. Besides, I got such a beastly cold. And I’d had the adventure. You don’t want to go on having one dinner after another all day. You want a change. I’m being sensible, that’s all. I daresay I shall be silly again some day,’ he added consolingly. ‘A chap has to be silly or not moresuis, that means “off his own bat,” Charles.’