"No matter," said E. Eliot. "Betty heard us, and the central office will be able to trace the call."
It was because she could depend on Betty's intelligence, she went on to say, that she had called her instead of the Remington house—for suppose that fool Brewster-Smith woman had come to the telephone!
She and Geneviève occupied themselves with their bonds, fumbling back to back for a while, until Geneviève had a brilliant idea. Kneeling, she bit at the cords which held Miss Eliot's wrists until they began to give.
What Betty had done intelligently was nothing to what she had done without meaning it. She had been unkind to Pudge. Young Sheridan was in a condition which, according to his own way of looking at it, demanded the utmost kindness.
Following a too free indulgence in marrons glacés he had been relegated to a diet that reduced him to the extremity of desperation.
Not only had he been forbidden to eat sweets, but while his soul still longed for its accustomed solace, his stomach refused it, and he was unable to eat a box of candied fruit which he had with the greatest ingenuity secured.
And that was the occasion Betty took—herself full of nervous starts and mysterious recourse to the telephone behind locked doors—to remind him cruelly that he was getting flabby from staying too much in the house and to recommend a long walk for his good.
It was plain that she would stick at nothing to get her brother out of the way, and Pudge was cut to the heart.
Oh, well, he would go for a walk, from which he would probably be brought home a limp and helpless cripple. Come to think of it, if he once got started to walk he was not sure he would ever turn back; he would just walk on and on into a kinder environment than this.