The next moment she turned to Arabella. “You don’t object to it, do you?” she asked seriously.
“Well,” Arabella admitted, whispering very softly so that Sir Marmaduke might not hear and the Child had to bend low to catch the words, “to tell the truth, it does get pretty tiresome. Yes, I rather wish he wasn’t with me all the time. If you could fix it so that we could be together just on special occasions, you know—”
“I see,” said the Child quickly; “I’ll fix it to-morrow to suit you. I have plenty of paper left.”
Then she turned to Sir Marmaduke and helped him to a seat quite a little away from Arabella. She thought that relief for the much afflicted heroine could not come too soon.
“You don’t talk much, do you?” she observed to Sir Marmaduke. “I didn’t know you were such a quiet man.”
“Well,” he answered, twirling his moustache and settling his cravat after his change of position, “it’s a case of necessity. You said I did nothing but listen to the music of her voice. To be sure, I don’t mind,” gallantly turning to Arabella, “but I think she’d like to have me talk more.”
Arabella blushed prettily. “Yes, it would be more interesting for me,” she agreed.
It was the Child that sighed this time. “If you’d rather, I’ll change it so you can talk more. And I’ll make your train shorter, too,” she said to Arabella. “Five yards is altogether too much.” She began to wonder if she could remember all the alterations that had to be made. There seemed to be so many things she hadn’t thought of.
An odd sound coming from Arabella’s side of the bed arrested her attention. She appeared to be in some trouble.
“What is the matter?” asked the Child.