'Girls can't be expected to see sense in anything,' he said sulkily.
'At all events, no one can be expected to see bravery till there's some danger,' said Hazel; 'and there isn't the least!'
'That's all you know about it; but I've something more important to do than stay here squabbling. I'm off to see what the army's up to.' And he marched off with great pomp.
When he had disappeared, Hilary remarked frankly, 'Isn't he a pig?'
'I don't think it's nice to call our visitors "pigs," Hilary!' remonstrated Cecily, 'and he's not really more greedy than most boys.'
'Don't lecture, Cis. I didn't mean he was that kind of pig—I said he was a pig. And he is!' said Hilary, not over lucidly. 'I wonder what Jack and Guy can see in him. I thought that when they wrote asking him to be invited, that he'd be sure to be such a jolly boy!'
'He may be a jolly boy—at school,' was all that even the tolerant Cecily could find to urge in his favour.
'I believe,' said Hazel, 'that they're not nearly so mad about him as they were—didn't you notice about the tennis just now?'
'He bullies them—that's what it is,' explained Hilary; 'only with talking, I mean, of course, but he talks such a lot, and he will have his own way, and, if they say anything, he reminds them he's a visitor, and ought to be humoured. I wish it was any use getting Uncle Lambert to speak to him—but he's so stupid!'
'Is he, though?' said a lazy voice from behind the cedar.