“But it wouldn’t be that way at all,” said Nesta. “My eighteen and sixpence would be in my pocket, and your five shillings would stay in your pocket. I’d treat you when I pleased, and you’d treat me when you pleased. Do you understand?”
“Oh, yes,” said Flossie, “of course.” She really bore a great deal from Nesta, who could be quite unpleasant when she liked. “But the thing is how to get you to the seaside. Do you think it would be any use for father to go over and see your father, and tell him what a splendid chance it would be for you?”
“No,” replied Nesta, “there’s only one way for me to go—I must run away. I must meet you at the station, and when I get to Scarborough, I don’t suppose they’ll bother about getting me back, and I can spend sixpence on a telegram and tell them where I am. I wouldn’t sent it till pretty late in the day, and then they couldn’t get me back for a day or two. That would be the best thing—it’s the only thing to do.”
Flossie sat down under a wide-spreading oak tree and considered Nesta’s proposal.
“That would be right enough,” she said, “as far as I am concerned, but you have to think of father. He wouldn’t take you for all the world if he knew you were coming in that sort of fashion.”
“Wouldn’t he, Flossie? Why not?”
“Because—although I dare say you think my father common enough—I have often seen that you do—he is very strict in his ideas, and he wouldn’t think it right for you to come. If you manage your running away, you must let father think you have got leave.”
“Well, can’t you help me, Flossie? You are so clever in inventing things. Even if I could have two whole days at the seaside I’d come back better, and really and truly mother is quite convalescent, and there are Molly and Ethel, and they have Nurse Davenant—they could manage her for the time being. Can’t you help me, Flossie?”
“I’ll think,” said Flossie. She remembered those stories which she loved—those stories of naughty heroines and princes and princesses, when the princes always rescued the princesses, when the naughty heroines were brought to see the error of their ways, although they had a dreadful time at first following their own devices. Flossie quite longed to have a sort of affair going on in which Nesta should be on tenter-hooks, and very much obliged to her for all that she was doing for her, and in consequence inclined to spend her money for Flossie’s delectation.
“Well,” she said, after a pause, “if I can manage it I will. I’ll just get father to understand, without telling too big a tarradiddle, you perceive, that it is all right, and that you are coming. Then you must be at the station, and you must bring a box with you. You must on no account come without luggage, or he’d be up in arms at once.”