He went next day. The three C.’s saw him off at the station, all wearing arbor vitæ in their button-holes to signify ‘unchanging friendship,’ and Charlotte at the last moment pressed the Scottish Cavaliers into his hand.
‘I say, though, wasn’t it dreadful, him telling that lie,’ said Charles as they turned away from the platform. It was a public place, but one of his sisters shook him, then and there, and the other said, ‘Look here, Charles, if you ever say another word about it, we’ll never speak to you again. See?’
And Charles saw. ‘I don’t mean I don’t like him and all that,’ he tried to explain, ‘but you wouldn’t like me not to think lying was wrong, would you?’
Then the girls saw.
‘You needn’t think we think anything,’ said Caroline. ‘You just shut up, Charles. We’re two to one.’
CHAPTER XXII
THE PORTRAIT
There were now two things for the three C.’s to look forward to: the return of Rupert and Lord Andore’s coming-of-age party. The magic of the waxen man had ended so seriously that no one liked to suggest the trying of any new spells, though Charlotte still cherished the hope that it might some day seem possible to try a spell for bringing the picture to life. There were no directions for such a spell in any of the books.
‘But,’ she thought, ‘considering all the experience we’ve had, we ought to be able to invent something.’