"We'll come back," said Ralph, "if we don't get on all right."
They started in a duet of explosions, the motor-bicycles hissing and crunching through the light snow. Barbara, swinging on Ralph's carrier, waved her hand light-heartedly to Mr. Waddington. He hated Barbara; but far more than Barbara he hated Horry, and far more than Horry he hated Ralph.
"He'd no business to take her," he said. "She'd no business to go."
"You can't stop them, my dear," said Fanny; "they're too young."
"Well, if they come back with their necks broken they'll have only themselves to thank."
He took a ferocious pleasure in thinking of Horry and Ralph and Barbara with their necks broken.
Fanny stared at him. "I wonder what's made him so cross," she thought. "He looks as if he'd got a chill on the liver."…. "Horatio, have you got a chill on the liver?"
"Now, what on earth put that into your head?"
"Your face. You look just a little off colour, darling."
At that moment Mr. Waddington began to sneeze.