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‘You wouldn’t understand,’ she said.
‘I understand this – that you are wasting your time and being a very silly little girl. What’s that you’re hiding behind your back?’
She held out her right hand at once, unclenched her fingers and disclosed a thimble. He looked at it and then into her face.
‘Why did you hide that from me?’ he asked. ‘There was no need.’
She gave him a faint secretive smile – that new smile of hers – before replying.
‘We were playing with it. I didn’t want you to know.’
‘You were playing with it, you mean. And why didn’t you want me to know?’
‘About them. Because I thought you wouldn’t understand. You don’t understand.’
He saw that it was useless to affect anger or show impatience. He spoke to her gently, even with an attempt at displaying sympathy.
‘Who are “they”?’ he asked.
‘They’re just them. Other girls.’
‘I see. And they come and play with you, do they? And they run away whenever I’m about because they don’t like me. Is that it?’
She shook her head.
‘It isn’t that they don’t like you. I think they like everybody. But they’re so shy. They were shy of me for a long, long time. I knew they were there, but it was weeks and weeks before they’d come and play with me. It was weeks before I even saw them.’
‘Yes? Well, what are they like?’
‘Oh, they’re just girls. And they’re awfully, awfully nice. Some are a bit older than me and some are a bit younger. And they don’t dress like other girls you see today. They’re in white with longer skirts and they wear sashes.’
Everton inclined his head gravely. ‘She got that out of the illustrations in books in the library,’ he reflected.
‘You don’t happen to know their names, I suppose?’ he asked, hoping that no quizzical note in his voice rang through the casual but sincere tone which he intended.
‘Oh, yes. There’s Mary Hewitt – I think I love her best of all – and Elsie Power and –’
‘How many of them altogether?’
‘Seven. It’s just a nice number. And this is the schoolroom where we play games. I love games. I wish I’d learned to play games before.’
‘And you’ve been playing with the thimble?’
‘Yes. Hunt-the-thimble they call it. One of us hides it, and then the rest of us try to find it, and the one who finds it hides it again.’
‘You mean you hide it yourself, and then go and find it.’
The smile left her face at once, and the look in her eyes warned him that she was done with confidences.
‘Ah!’ she exclaimed. ‘You don’t understand after all. I somehow knew you wouldn’t.’
Everton, however, thought he did. His face wore a sudden smile of relief.
‘Well, never mind,’ he said. ‘But I shouldn’t play too much if I were you.’
With that he left her. But curiosity tempted him, not in vain, to linger and listen for a moment on the other side of the door which he had closed behind him. He heard Monica whisper:
‘Mary! Elsie! Come on. It’s all right. He’s gone now.’
