‘Poor old Charles!’ said Charlotte. ‘I’m sorry I scratched, but it is aggravating, now isn’t it?’
‘Not for you it isn’t,’ said Charles. ‘You haven’t looked behind the curtain. You haven’t broken your part of the magic. It’s all right for you. You’ll see her right enough. It’s me that won’t. You’re all right.’
‘But I expect your looking broke the spell and she’s back again,’ said Caroline, reaching out a hand to the curtain.
‘Don’t!’ shrieked Charles, ‘the spell didn’t break. It went on. Because I looked again to see if it had. And she wasn’t there.’
‘How often have you looked?’ Caroline asked severely.
‘Every day since,’ said Charles in a low voice.
‘And when did you look first?’
‘The day you went to bed,’ said Charles in a still lower voice. ‘She wasn’t there then, and she isn’t there now. Oh, don’t rag me about it. I shan’t see her. That’s jolly well enough, I should think, without you going on at me.’
‘We won’t,’ said Caroline heroically, and turned her back on the picture. ‘But you won’t look again, will you, Charles?’