“There’s no spring that ever locksmith wrought that will keep down Papillon,” cried De Malfort, sounding a light accompaniment to his words on the guitar strings, with delicatest touch, like fairy music.
“I know of better hiding-places,” answered the child, and vanished, banging the great door behind her.
She found her aunt with Dorothy Lettsome and her brother and Denzil in the gallery above stairs, walking up and down, and listening with every indication of weariness to the Squire’s discourse about his hunters and running-horses.
“Now we are going to have real good sport!” cried Papillon. “Aunt Angy and I are to hide, and you three are to look for us. You must stop in this gallery for ten minutes by the French clock yonder—with the door shut. You must give us ten minutes’ law, Mr. Lettsome, as you did the hare the other day, when I was out with you—and then you may begin to look for us. Promise.”
“Stay, little miss, you will be outside the house belike, roaming lord knows where; in the shrubberies, or the barns, or halfway to Oxford—while we are made fools of here.”
“No, no. We will be inside the house.”
“Do you promise that, pretty lady?”
“Yes, I promise.”
Mrs. Dorothy suggested that there had been enough of childish play, and that it would be pleasanter to sit in the saloon with her ladyship, and hear Monsieur de Malfort sing.
“I’ll wager he was singing when you saw him just now.”