"Why, if we don't want to?" Fiammetta persisted. "If I mayn't read in there, may I stay out here and read?"
"Papa likes us all to be present when he's so good as to read to us," Aunt Alice said more firmly. "It would never do for one of our guests to miss his reading. Give me that book, dear!"
Aunt Alice held out her hand for the book. Fiammetta put it behind her back: "Mrs. Stacey," she said earnestly, "I don't understand. Is it like church? Nurse says we go to church here because it's pleasing to the Almighty—we never go in London, daddie and I. Do we have to listen to Mr. Stacey because it's pleasing to the Almighty, or what?"
Aunt Alice lost her temper. "You must do as you are told," she said shortly. "Give me that book. I see papa at the window; he is ready for us."
With a sigh Fiammetta handed over the Jungle Book and we all filed into the drawing-room.
Uncle Edward sat in his usual chair, carefully placed so that the light fell at exactly the right angle upon his book. We all settled ourselves to listen respectfully, except Fiammetta, who, just as he was about to begin, stood up and said, "Mr. Stacey, do you mind if I go into the garden instead of listening?"
Uncle Edward gazed at Fiammetta in the utmost astonishment: "Don't you want to hear the reading?" he asked.
"Not a bit," Fiammetta said firmly. "I know you do it for kindness and all that, but it does bore me so. I asked Mrs. Stacey, but she seemed to think you'd mind ... you don't, do you?" and she smiled in friendliest fashion at Uncle Edward.
"It is, of course," he said slowly, "a matter of pure indifference to me whether you are present or not."
"Thank you so much," Fiammetta said sweetly. "You don't mind now, do you, dear Mrs. Stacey? And may I have the Jungle Book to take with me?"