'Floss, Floss! I want my baby,' the mother's voice was saying.
Hermie looked about her distressed.
'Will you take no notice just yet, darling?' she said. 'She is very—shy, but she won't be able to stay away long; she's hiding somewhere.'
'Well, look here,' Roly said, 'I suppose she'll be wanting to come out here and see you——'
'Who?' said Challis, who also was looking longingly for the little girl she was going to put to bed at night.
'That Queen-woman, of course,' said Roly. 'Look here, you can tell her straight before she comes I'm not going to take my tent down for her. You can let her have Miss Browne's bedroom, and you can't see it from that window. Miss Browne's got a cheek. Wanted me to take it down just for you and mother, cos she says it's untidy.'
'Why, we're dying to see the tent, aren't we, mother?' Challis said.
Mrs. Cameron's arm went round her boy's shoulder, and her lips down to his round, closely cropped head. He dodged skilfully.
'Come and see the tent,' he said. Then a gush of gentler feeling came up in his little boy-heart, and he moved up to her again and rubbed his head on her arm. 'If you like,' he said, 'I'll let you sleep out in it to-night, but not her,' and he pointed a finger at Challis; 'she'd get messing about and trying to tidy up.'
He dragged them round to the back of the cottage, where the tent stood, a most dilapidated spread of ragged canvas.