She responded with sniffs and with occasional scraping noises of furniture being moved to reinforce her defenses. Finally, to Betty's distress, she pushed out a note announcing that henceforth she would have nothing to do with the Buttons—and that no one could tell her that poems like those were Victorian.
Before the third day was half over, the Captain was moping around, Charles was peevish, and Betty had started to worry and fret.
So, in the late afternoon, they went on a picnic. Followed by Herman, and by the four-armed dining room robot carrying two wicker hampers, they walked around the lake to a broad grassy knoll where the strange square trees grew in a circle, and prisms of quartz leaned from the ground like Druids turned into stone. While they ate, the night advanced softly, its moons weaving crystalline shadows of celadon, rose, and old ivory.
Betty waited until the last hint of daylight had vanished. Then, "It's lovely," she whispered. "Poor Cousin Aurelia, it'd all be so simple if she'd only come out, but—oh, I'm afraid that it's hopeless!"
"Hopeless?" Charles snorted. "It's easy. We'll break into her room, me and Burgee, and hold her while you pour some of Sugar Plum's water down her gullet. She'll be fixed up before she finds out what hit her."
"We mustn't do that," the captain said stiffly. "We can't employ violence."
"Look who's talking!" Charles was amused. "An old pirate like you. Robbing ships, making passengers walk the plank into space, shooting people with ray guns, and—"