Albert’s uncle finished pumping up the tyre, and then flinging himself into the saddle he set off, scorching down the road at a pace not surpassed by any highwayman, however black and high-mettled his steed. We were left looking at each other. ‘He must have recognized her,’ Dicky said.
‘Perhaps,’ Noel said, ‘she is the old nurse who alone knows the dark secret of his highborn birth.’
‘Not old enough, by chalks,’ Oswald said.
‘I shouldn’t wonder,’ said Alice, ‘if she holds the secret of the will that will make him rolling in long-lost wealth.’
‘I wonder if he’ll catch her,’ Noel said. ‘I’m quite certain all his future depends on it. Perhaps she’s his long-lost sister, and the estate was left to them equally, only she couldn’t be found, so it couldn’t be shared up.’
‘Perhaps he’s only in love with her,’ Dora said, ‘parted by cruel Fate at an early age, he has ranged the wide world ever since trying to find her.’
‘I hope to goodness he hasn’t—anyway, he’s not ranged since we knew him—never further than Hastings,’ Oswald said. ‘We don’t want any of that rot.’
‘What rot?’ Daisy asked. And Oswald said—
‘Getting married, and all that sort of rubbish.’
And Daisy and Dora were the only ones that didn’t agree with him. Even Alice owned that being bridesmaids must be fairly good fun. It’s no good. You may treat girls as well as you like, and give them every comfort and luxury, and play fair just as if they were boys, but there is something unmanly about the best of girls. They go silly, like milk goes sour, without any warning.