None the less on the eve of their departure she was deploring bitterly the fact that she would not see them on the morrow, when the Terror was magnificently inspired.
“Look here: why shouldn’t you come with us into camp?” he said eagerly. “A week of it would buck you up more than a month at the Grange. You really do get open air camping out at the knoll.”
The face of the princess flushed and brightened at the splendid thought. Then it fell; and she said: “They’d never let me—never.”
“But you’d never ask them,” said the Terror. “You’d just slip away and come with us. We’ve kept our knowing you so dark that they’d never dream you were with us in the knoll caves.”
The princess was charmed, even dazzled, by the glorious prospect. She had come to feel strongly that by far the best part of her life was the afternoons she spent with the Twins in the wood; whole days with them would be beyond the delight of dreams. But to her unadventured soul the difficulties seemed beyond all surmounting. The Twins, however, were used to surmounting difficulties, and at once they began surmounting these.
“The difficult thing is not to get you there, but to keep you there,” said the Terror thoughtfully. “You see, I’ve got to go down every day for milk and things, and they’re sure to ask me if I’ve seen anything of you. Of course, I can’t lie about it; and then they’ll not only take you away, but they’ll probably turn us out of the caves.”
“That’s the drawback,” said Erebus.
The Twins gazed round the wood seeking enlightenment. A deep frown furrowed the Terror’s brow; and he said: “If only you weren’t a princess they wouldn’t make half such a fuss hunting for you, and I might never be asked anything about you.”
“I should have to come to the camp incognita, of course,” said the princess.
The Terror looked puzzled for a moment; then his face cleared into a glorious smile, and he cried: