"You're a dreadful little liar, Tony," Eleanor said dispassionately. "You knew quite well this wasn't Wednesday. You just saw me in a car with a stranger and so you came along to find out who the stranger was."
"Eleanor," murmured Bee, deprecating.
"You don't know him," Eleanor said, as if the subject of discussion was not present. "His curiosity amounts to a mania. It's almost his only human attribute."
"If you take him to-day you won't have to take him to-morrow," Simon said, eyeing the Toselli child with distaste.
"He can't come and expect to ride just when he feels like it!" Eleanor said. "Besides, I said I wouldn't take him out again in these things. I told you to get a pair of boots, Tony."
The black eyes stopped being lizards and became two brimming pools of grief. "My father can't afford boots for me," said Tony with a catch in his alto, guaranteed to draw blood from a stone.
"Your father has £12,000 a year free of income tax," Eleanor said briskly.
"If you took him to-day, Nell," Bee said, "you'd be free to help me to-morrow when half the countryside comes dropping in to have a look at Brat." And, as Eleanor hesitated: "You might as well get it over now that he's here."
"And he'll still be wearing moccasins to-morrow," Simon drawled.
"Indian riders wear moccasins," Tony observed mildly, "and they are very good riders."