Only after they had left Colin in the schoolroom, he turned on Jerrold.

“Some day,” he said, “Col-Col will be a perfect nuisance.  Then you and Anne’ll have to pay for it.”

“Why me and Anne?”

“Because you’ll both be fools enough to keep on giving in to him.”

“I suppose,” said Jerrold bitterly, “you think you’re clever.”

Adeline came out and overheard him and made a scene in the gallery before Pinkney, the footman, who was bringing in the schoolroom tea.  She said Eliot was clever enough and old enough to know better.  They were all old enough.  And Jerrold said it was his fault, not Eliot’s, and Anne said it was hers, too.  And Adeline declared that it was all their faults and she would have to speak to their father.  She kept it up long after Eliot and Jerrold had retreated to the bathroom.  If it had been anybody but her little Col-Col.  She wouldn’t have him dragged about the country till he dropped.

She added that Col-Col was her favourite.

xi

It was the last week of the holidays.  Rain had come with the west wind.  The hills were drawn back behind thick sheets of glassy rain.  Shining spears of rain dashed themselves against the west windows.  Jets of rain rose up, whirling and spraying, from the terrace.  Rain ran before the wind in a silver scud along the flagged path under the south front.

The wind made hard, thudding noises as if it pounded invisible bodies in the air.  It screamed high above the drumming and hissing of the rain.

It excited the children.

From three o’clock till tea-time the sponge fight stormed up and down the passages.  The house was filled with the sound of thudding feet and shrill laughter.

Adeline lay on the sofa in the library.  Eliot was with her there.

She was amused, but a little plaintive when they rushed in to her.

“It’s perfectly awful the noise you children are making.  I’m tired out with it.”

Jerrold flung himself on her.  “Tired?  What must we be?”

But he wasn’t tired.  His madness still worked in him.  It sought some supreme expression.

“What can we play at next?” said Anne.

“What can we play at next?” said Colin.

“Something quiet, for goodness sake,” said his mother.

They were very quiet, Jerrold and Anne and Colin, as they set the booby-trap for Pinkney.  Very quiet as they watched Pinkney’s innocent approach.  The sponge caught him—­with a delightful, squelching flump—­full and fair on the top of his sleek head.

Anne shrieked with delight.  “Oh Jerry, did you hear him say ’Damn’?”

They rushed back to the library to tell Eliot.  But Eliot couldn’t see that it was funny.  He said it was a rotten thing to do.

“When he’s a servant and can’t do anything to us.”

“I never thought of that,” said Jerrold. (It was pretty rotten.) ...  “I could ask him to bowl to me and let him get me out.”