‘It isn’t as if we were allowed free,’ she pointed out. ‘I wish they hadn’t been so careful. The leopard would never have hurt us as long as we carried the bane, and we could have surrounded it, like snakes, with ash leaves, and it would have had to surrender.’
‘And perhaps it would have talked to us and followed us like tame fawns,’ suggested Charlotte; ‘or Una; only hers was a lion.’
‘Nonsense!’ said Charles; ‘you know you’d have been afraid.’
‘I shouldn’t,’ said Charlotte.
‘You would,’ said Charles.
‘I shouldn’t.’
‘You would.’
‘I shouldn’t.’
‘You would.’
‘And now you’re both exactly like Rupert,’ said Caroline; ‘and the leopard wandering about unbaned while you’re wrangling. You’re like Nero and Rome.’