He saw she was utterly unsympathetic, and he wandered on to the hall, which was used as a morning-room, where Hilary sat painting a pansy, and he broke the news to her in much the same words. She actually laughed, and she had been almost as frightened as Cecily when he had told her of the other Indians.
'You are too killing over those Red Indians!' she said. Privately, he thought that the Red Indians would do all the killing.
'You needn't laugh; it's true!' he said solemnly.
'Oh, of course!' said Hilary; 'but don't come so near, or you'll upset my glass of water.' Hilary, too, was hopeless; he was reduced to his last cards now, and came in upon Mrs. Jolliffe as she sat at her writing-table. She looked up with a sweet, vague smile.
'What is it now, dear boy?' she asked. 'I hope you are managing to amuse yourself.'
'I think I ought to tell you,' he said thickly, 'that a tribe of Bogallala Indians are going to storm our encampment this evening.'
Perhaps Mrs. Jolliffe was getting a little bored with military topics. 'Yes, yes,' she said absently, 'that will be very nice, I'm sure. Don't be too late in coming in, there's good boys.'
'You don't mind our being there?—there will be danger!' he said with meaning.
'Mind? Not in the very least, so long as you are enjoying yourself,' she said kindly.
There went one card: he had but one more. 'Could you let Corklett and George' (they were the butler and page respectively) 'come down to the camp about half-past eight? We should be so much safer if we had them with us.'