Page:HG Wells--secret places of the heart.djvu/140

128 circling megaliths, and one or two other feminine personalities produced effects of movement rather than of individuality as they flitted among the stones. “Well,” said the lady in grey, with that rising intonation of humorous conclusion which is so distinctively American, “those Druids have got him.”

“He’s hiding,” said the automobilist, in a voice that promised chastisement to a hidden hearer. “That’s what he is doing. He ought not to play tricks like this. A great boy who is almost six.”

“If you are looking for a small, resolute boy of six,” said Sir Richmond, addressing himself to the lady on the rock rather than to the angry parent below, “he’s perfectly safe and happy. The Druids haven’t got him. Indeed, they’ve failed altogether to get him. ‘Stonehenge,’ he says, ‘is no good.’ So he’s gone back to clean the lamps of your car.”

“Aa-oo. So that’s it!” said Papa. “Winnie, go and tell Price he’s gone back to the car.... They oughtn’t to have let him out of the enclosure....”

The excitement about Master Anthony collapsed. The rest of the people in the circles crystallized out into the central space as two apparent sisters and an apparent aunt and the nurse, who was packed off at once to supervise the lamp cleaning. The head of the family found some diffi-