“My shoe,” she whispered. “It came off slap in the middle of the lawn. I always knew those were perfectly beastly shoes. It was Sylvia Courtney made me buy them, though I told her at the time they’d never stick on, and what good are shoes if they don’t. Now they are sure to see it; though perhaps they won’t. If they don’t I can make another dart and get it.”
To avoid all risk of the loss of the second shoe Priscilla took it off before she started. Lord Torrington and Sir Lucius crossed the lawn again. It seemed as if one or other of them must tread on the shoe which lay on their path; but they passed it by. Priscilla seized her chance, rushed to the middle of the lawn and returned again successfully. Then she and Frank retreated, for the sake of greater security, into the middle of the shrubbery.
“Everything’s all right,” said Priscilla. “I’ve got lots and lots of food stored away. I simply looted the dishes as they were brought out of the dining-room. Fried fish, a whole roast duck, three herrings’ roes on toast, half a caramel pudding--I squeezed it into an old jam pot--and several other things. We can start at any hour we like tomorrow and it won’t in the least matter whether Brannigan’s is open or not. What do you say to 6 a.m.?”
“Because I want to score off that old beast who sprained my ankle.”
The prefect in Frank had entirely disappeared. Two days of close companionship with Priscilla erased the marks made on his character by four long years of training at Haileybury. His respect for constituted authorities had vanished. The fact that Lord Torrington was Secretary of State for War did not weigh on him for an instant. He was, as indeed boys ought to be at seventeen years of age, a primitive barbarian. He was filled with a desire for revenge on the man who had insulted and injured him.
“You don’t know,” he said, “what Lord Torrington is here for.”
“Oh, yes, I do,” said Priscilla. “I’m not quite an ass. I was listening to Aunt Juliet and Lady Torrington shooting barbed arrows at each other after dinner. Aunt Juliet got rather the worst of it, I must say. Lady Torrington is one of those people whose garments smell of myrrh, aloes and cassia, and yet whose words are very swords; you know the sort I mean.”