Mr Bertrand went through a pantomime of tearing his hair. “Is there no escape?” he groaned. “It’s bad enough to be a lion in town, but I positively refuse to roar in the country. I won’t do it. I have writer’s cramp—I can’t use my right hand. Rayner, my boy, I’ll turn them on to you!”
“He is only pretending. He is really awfully pleased and flattered. Wait till you see how polite he will be when they ask him,” said Lettice mischievously; and, indeed, nothing could have been more courteous than Mr Bertrand’s manner when the American party flocked round him in the hall after luncheon.
“Your books are in every house in America, sir, and it gives us the greatest pleasure to have an opportunity of—”
“Oh, come along!” whispered Norah, pulling impatiently at Edna’s arm. “I know it all by heart. Come into the garden, both of you; Lettice and I have something to tell you—an exciting piece of news!”
“Kitten dead? New ribbons for your hats?” queried Rex indifferently. He was sceptical on the point of Norah’s “exciting confidences,” but this time Lettice looked at him reproachfully with her great, grey eyes.
“No, indeed—don’t make fun—it’s serious! Miss Carr is going to adopt one of us to live with her in London as her own daughter, for the next three years.”
“Nonsense!” Rex sat down in a heap on the grass, in front of the bench where the girls were seated. “Which?”
“Ah, that’s the mystery! She is to have her choice, and she won’t say which it is to be until Wednesday night—two days more. So, you see, you had better be polite, for you mayn’t have me with you much longer.”
“I am always polite to you,” said Rex moodily: and the statement passed unchallenged, for however much he might tease Norah, and snap at Hilary, he was always considerate for the feelings and comfort of “Lovely Lettice!”
“Oh, Norah, Norah! I hope it won’t be you!” cried Edna, clasping her hands round her friend’s arm in warm-hearted affection. “What should I do without you? We have been so happy, and have had such fun! Three years! What an age of a time! We shall be quite grown-up.”