The others said nothing, but with the child's keen instinct for the drama, had drawn aside in favour of the principal actors. Gerald stood by the stake, leaning indolently on his mallet, his long black lashes down-cast over the dark pallor of his cheeks, very handsome, very graceful. Bobby had drawn near on Celia's other side. The comparison showed all his freckles and the unformed homeliness of his rather dumpy, sturdy figure; it showed also the honest dull red of his cheeks and the clear unfaltering gray of his eyes. Celia, between them, looked down, tapping her croquet ball with the tip of her shoe.
"I don't think it's very hot," she said at last, looking up. "Let's play Hi-Spy."
A wave of glowing triumph rushed through Bobby's soul. Gerald merely shrugged his shoulders.
But unmixed joy was to be a short-lived emotion with Bobby as far as Celia was concerned. He knew lots of fine hiding-places about the grounds of the Ottawa, and he promised himself that he would take Celia to them. They could hide together; and that would be delightful.
Morris counted out first to be "it." He leaned his arm against a post, his head against his arm, and closed his eyes.
"Ten-ten-double-ten-forty-five-fifteen" he repeated over ten times as rapidly as possible. That was his way of counting a thousand.
The other children scurried off as fast as their legs could carry them in order to reach concealment before the end of the count. And somehow, against his will, Bobby found himself cast in the hurry of the moment with Kitty instead of with Celia. And Celia he saw disappear in Gerald's convoy.
"Coming!" roared Morris, uncovering his eyes.
"Oh dear, he's coming!" cried Kitty in distress, "and we're not hid! Where shall we go? Don't you know any good places?"
But Bobby, still confused over his disappointment, had not the wits wherewith to think in so pressing an emergency. He vacillated between pillar and post; and so was espied by the goal-keeper. Morris immediately set himself in rapid motion for the "home."