II
Meanwhile this awful adventure had suddenly leaped up in front of Jeremy like a Jack-in-the-box. Like many of the most daring adventures, its origin was simple. Four days earlier there had been a children’s afternoon party at the Dean’s. The Dean’s children’s parties were always dreary affairs because of Mrs. Dean’s neuralgia and because the Dean thought that his share of the affair was over when he had poked his head into the room where they were having tea, patted one or two innocents on the head (they became instantly white with self-consciousness), and then said in a loud, generous voice: “Well, my friends, enjoying yourselves? That’s right”—after which he returned to his study. The result of this was that his guests were as sheep without a shepherd. The Dean’s children were too young to do much, and the girls’ governess too deeply agitated by her fancy that children’s parents were staring at her arrogantly to pull herself together and be amiable. It was during one of those catch-as-catch-can intervals, when children were desultorily wandering, boys sticking pins into stout feminine calves, girls sniggering in secret conclave together, infants howling to be taken home, that Jeremy overheard Bill Bartlett say to the Dean’s Ernest: “I dare you!”
Jeremy pricked up his ears at once. Anything in which the Dean’s Ernest (his foe of foes) was concerned incited him to rivalry. He was terribly bored by the party; not only was it a bad, dull party, but ever since his first real evening ball children’s afternoon parties had seemed to him stupid and without reason.
“I don’t care,” said the Dean’s Ernest.
“I dare you,” repeated Bill Bartlett.
“I’m not frightened,” said Ernest.
“Then do it,” said Bill.
“You’ve got to come too.”
“Pooh!” said Bill, “that’s nothing. I’ve done lots more than that.”
Ernest quite plainly disliked the prospect of his daring, and, catching sight of Jeremy, he shifted his ground.