Before they were close enough to recognize faces the circle suddenly seemed to break up and fall apart.

One of its members turned sharply round and fled away across the grass, plunging into the thick bracken and bush, and disappearing from sight in less time than it takes to tell.

“Whoever had you with you?” Esther said when they reached the children.

There was a half-second’s silence, then Pip threw some sticks on the fire and said coolly: 

“Only a friend of Meg’s, a frightened kind of kid who has quite a dread of the pater.  I believe she imagines soldiers go round with their swords sharpened, ready for use.”

He laughed lightly.  Nell joined in in a little hysterical way, and Baby began to cry.

Meg, white as death, picked her up and hurriedly began telling her the story of the three bears for comfort.

Esther looked a little puzzled, but, of course, never dreamt of connecting the flying figure with Judy.

And the Captain seemed delightfully blind and unsuspicious.  He lay down on the grass and let the General swarm all over him; he made jokes with Esther; he told several stories of his young days, and never even seemed to remark that his audience seemed inattentive and constrained.

“Haven’t you made some tea?” Esther said at last.  “We love billy tea, and thought you would be sure to have some?”

“Bunty hasn’t come, he was to have brought the billy,” Pip said, half sulkily.  He had suspicions that there was something behind this great affability of his father, and he objected to being played with.

“Ah,” the Captain said gravely, “that is unfortunate.  When I came away Bunty did not seem very well, and was thinking of spending the rest of the day in his bedroom.”

Pip made up the fire in a dogged way, and Meg flashed a frightened glance at her father, who smiled affectionately back at her.

After an hour of this strained intercourse the Captain proposed a return home.

“It is growing chill,” he said.  “I should be grieved for the General’s new-born tooth to start its life by aching—­let’s go home and make shift with teapot tea.”

So they gathered up the untouched baskets and made themselves into a procession.

The Captain insisted on Pip and Meg walking with him, and he sent Baby and Nell on in front, one on either side of Esther, who was alternately leading and carrying the General.

This arrangement being, as indeed Pip shrewdly suspected; to prevent the possibility of any intercourse or formation of new plans.

And when they got home he invited them all to come into his smoking-room, a little slit of a place off the dining-room.

Esther took the General upstairs, but the others followed him in silence.

“Sit down, Pip, my boy,” he said genially.  “Come, Meg, make yourself at home, take a seat in that armchair.  Nell and Baby can occupy the lounge.”