Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/152

Rh thinking how frightfully pleased you'd both be. And now you're quarrelling with me, and she's gone off crying with that Dixy fellow, and everything's about as damnable—I beg your pardon, but it really is—as it can possibly be."

"Well," said Lucilla, "it's no use making it worse by being silly; of course Jane and I both wanted to go off and look for the wheelbarrow—anything to get away from you. You don't suppose we enjoyed standing and snivelling at you like silly, hysterical schoolgirls, do you?"

"Look here," said Mr. Rochester, "about that man Dix, or whatever his wretched name is . . ."

"Well, what about him?"

"Don't be prickly. Do tell me about him."

"All right. I will. We made his acquaintance at Madame Tussaud's and—and we asked him to tea. Jane asked him to be our gardener. And now what about it?"

"You mean to say you just met him like that—you don't know anything about him?"

"No more than we knew about you when we asked you to tea. Now look here, Mr. Rochester, we like you very much as friend, but we aren't going to have you as a duenna. Yes, I daresay I'm vulgar, but there it is. We choose our own friends. You oughtn't to forget that we chose you. And you can't expect us to go through life without any friends except you. And you can't expect us not to have a gardener. And do think what a much better number four is than three for tennis."

"That's true," he admitted thoughtfully.

"If I knew you well enough to ask a favour . . ."

"But you do—you do."

"Then I should ask you to be very nice to Mr. Dix. There's every reason why you should. Look here, Mr. Rochester. I'm beginning to understand what you said just now. If we're really to have Cedar Court, this is our day of days—the birthday of our life. And we're spoiling it with silliness. Put the black dog up the chimney. Fie, fie! Unknit that angry, threatening brow, and tell me I'm not dreaming, and that