Dance to Your Daddy

expect you've more brains than I have. How oddly you dress! Do you like dressing up? I did, when I was a little girl.'

'So you do now,' said Dame Beatrice. 'Didn't you tell me you wanted to model clothes?'

'I wish you'd show me your clothes, and let me try them on,' said Rosamund quickly to Binnie. She was wearing Joan of Arc's armour again. 'Could we go to your room?'

'No, you cannot go now,' said Dame Beatrice. 'We are to have our session at once, instead of after tea.'

'I love my tea,' said Binnie, 'and I can see that Rosamund is quite as well as I am. I think I'll go downstairs.'

She left them. Rosamund said:

'Is she quite all there?'

Dame Beatrice did not reply. She scribbled a few words in her notebook and handed it over. Rosamund read the sentences she had written and nodded intelligently.

'War,' said Dame Beatrice, loudly.

'And peace,' said Rosamund automatically.

'Peace-makers.'

'Pace-makers. People who help people to win races.'

'Race-antagonism.'

'There was a young lady named Starkey...'

'That, surely, was fusion, not antagonism. Let us begin again.'

They played out the farce until the sound of a door being shut told Dame Beatrice what she wanted to know.

'I'll go now,' said Rosamund, who had heard it, too.

'Do not attempt to do what you had thought of, even if Binnie lends you some clothes,' said Dame Beatrice.

'Very well. I see you know what it was.'

'It was obvious, of course. But that is not the way.'

'You mean I should be found and brought back?'

'I could not prevent it, at this stage. Have a little patience. Why has Romilly invited all these people here?'

There was a tap at the door.

'So sorry to intrude,' said Romilly. He went over to Rosamund, who shrank back as he approached her. 'I think you had better do as you suggested just now, my dear,' he said. 'Make yourself scarce. You may join the others downstairs, if you wish to do so, but you must behave yourself, mind. No nonsense and no tantrums, and you are to pay no attention to anything Tancred may say to you. You know which one is Tancred. You met him the last time he came. He will flatter you, maybe, and talk all kinds of nonsense about his poetry, but it is all meaningless. Do you understand me?'

'Yes,' said Rosamund sullenly, 'but I don't want to go downstairs. I like it here with Professor Adler.'

'Yes, my dear, I am sure you do, but I wish to speak with her in private, so run along, there's a good child. If you ask Amabel, she will give you some lemon drops. You like lemon drops, don't you?'

With obvious unwillingness, Rosamund left them. There was silence until she had closed the door. Then Dame Beatrice said:

'This is an intrusion, you know. I do not care to have my sessions interrupted.'

'I am sorry about the interruption, but, with all these people in the house, I had to find a way of seeing you alone.'

'For any particular reason?'

'For one thing, I need to know why you dislike me. I suppose there is a connection with Trilby. I ought to have stressed that she is a pathological liar, but I am certain you have far too much experience of these cases to be taken in by her. She was planning to run away again, was she?'

'How did you know that?'

'I did not know it. I made a guess that it would be the first thing over which she would attempt to enlist your aid.'

'Did you also guess that I should refuse it?'

'I gave you credit, of course, for ordinary common sense.'

'I think you have been eavesdropping, you know. You overheard our conversation, did you not?'

'My dear Beatrice!'

'It would be rather naive of you to deny it. I have found the hole in the wall, as I thought I had sufficiently indicated.'

'I simply do not understand you!'

'Do you not?'