“I believe you weren’t lyin’ to me,” he remarked presently.
“You wait! Just you wait!” I exclaimed.
He watched a little longer. “D’you suppose,” he said, “it’s his feathers they love so?”
“His feathers?” I repeated.
“Those two curly ones in his tail. They’re crooked plumb enticing, like they were saying, ‘Come, girls!’”
This reminded me of Jimsy’s unbrushed mound of hair and May’s coldness at his reference to it. “Feathers would hardly account for everything,” I said.
A last spark of doubt flickered in Jimsy. “Are you joshing about this thing?” he asked.
“Just you wait,” I said again.
We did not have to wait. In the judgment of the drake it was time for the haystack; the ducks thought it too soon. All began as usual. Sir Francis had reached the woodpile and taken his attitude, the first protesting scream from the pond had risen to the sky, Jimsy’s face was causing me acute pleasure, when the Duchess did an entirely new thing. She swam to the inlet and began to waddle slowly up the trickling stream. Then I perceived a few yards beyond her the cleanings of some fish which had been thrown out. It was for these she was making.
“She has ruined everything!” I lamented.