‘If we’ve done nothing else these holidays, we have at least saved Jill from the Doctor,’ he remarked with a chuckle.
‘What’s the good of that?’ growled Kit. He did not take the keen interest in the salvation of Jill that the others expected from him, though he certainly did not raise any grown-up objections to it, as Egbert would have done. Egbert was going to Oxford in October, and he was getting far too grown-up for ordinary intercourse with the rest of the family. Kit was not in the least grown-up; besides, he hated the Doctor–that was certain, because he so constantly said he did. But it was a pity, the others agreed, that he did not show more enthusiasm over persecuting him.
‘It’s a lot of good,’ retorted Peter. ‘You don’t want her to marry the chap, do you?’
Kit smiled in a superior manner. ‘I’m not interested in marrying,’ he observed. ‘You can’t have marrying, or any of that rot, without girls. And I hate girls.’
‘Do you hate Jill?’ cried Wilfred, staring.
Christopher kicked another stone across the yard.
‘That’s different,’ he said vaguely. ‘Jill’s not a girl, exactly.’
‘What is she, anyway?’ demanded Peter.
Kit’s genius was hard pressed. It was so stupid of people to take him literally. Robin saved his embarrassment by suddenly rushing helter-skelter into the yard, from the direction of the carriage-drive.
‘He’s just driven in at the lodge gates,’ he panted. ‘An’ Jill’s waiting on the front doorstep. If you don’t look sharp you won’t cob them in time.’