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And Flossie, willingly cajoled, began again, and, as he saw with horror, on his hoarded relics of the Harden library. "No, Flossie," he said, with a queer change in his voice. "Not those." But Flossie's fingers moved along their tops with a delicacy born of the incessant manipulation of bank notes. All the same, she did do it wrong, for she dusted towards the backs instead of away from them.
This was not the only fright at the picnic, for a little girl about Flossie's age cried when she saw a big frog in a pool, and a little boy ran screaming to his mother because a grasshopper perched on his shoulder. But things like these always happen at picnics, and when the little frights were over even the children themselves laughed at their short-lived terror.
Eppingwell striving to withhold the man from the Greek dancer's blandishments against the time of Flossie's coming; Flossie lessening the miles each day on the dreary trail; Freda pitting her strength against the model-woman; the model-woman straining every nerve to land the prize; and the man moving through it all like a flying shuttle, very proud of himself, whom he believed to be a second Don Juan.
A little later Flossie and Freddie were back "home" again. That is, if you call a hotel "home," and it was, for the time, to the traveling Bobbseys. "What made you do it?" asked Flossie's mother, when the story had been told. "What made you go after the stray cat?" "It was such a nice cat!" said the little girl, "And we wanted to see if it was like our Snoop," added Freddie.
When Spinks presented himself in Rickman's study he obtained admission in spite of the lateness of the hour. The youth's solemn agitation was not to be gainsaid. He first of all delivered himself of Flossie's message, faithfully, word for word. "Oh, so she's told you everything, has she? And what did she tell you?" "Why, that it was all over between you, broken off, you know."
The next moment her mother, who turned quickly as she heard Flossie's voice, saw the little girl lean far over the rail of the Bluebird. Then came a splash. Flossie had fallen overboard! "Flossie is in the water!" "Get the boat!" "Snap! Jump in and get her!" "Oh, Flossie!"
Though the cherries were made of celluloid, they looked very real, and they might have fooled even a boy or a girl, to say nothing of a monkey. So with a quick bound Jacko which seems to be the name of all those long-tailed chaps was perched on Flossie's shoulder, tearing at her hat with two paws, trying to pull off what he thought were ripe, red cherries. "Oh! Oh!" screamed Flossie. "Oh, stop!"
"I saw it blow out of the window, and I chased it and chased it. I was afraid maybe it would blow into the river." "It was very nice of you," said Mr. Bobbsey, and he gave the boy twenty- five cents, which pleased that small chap very much. Flossie's hat was a little dusty, but the pink roses were not soiled, and soon she was wearing it again.
Her father had been a clerk in the Bank of England, and on his death she obtained a post there as a sorter. That position gave Flossie both dignity and independence; it meant light work and hours which brought hope with them every day towards three o'clock. Under these circumstances Flossie's beauty went on flowering and expanding, till she became more than ever a thing of danger and disaster.
"I'm so sorry, Floss," said Rickman in a queer thick voice. She had turned her face towards him now, and its expression was inscrutable to him. To another man it would have said that it was all very well for him to be sorry; he could put a stop to it soon enough if he liked. "Oh you needn't be sorry." "Why not? Do you think I don't care?" Immense play of expression on Flossie's face.
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