Why was it, Luke asked himself, that she was always so merry and bright with others, and so very different when she was with him? Could it be that she wore a mask to the rest of the world, and disclosed her real self only to him? It could. It could also be just the other way round. That was the annoying part of it.
He was depressed during lunch. The story of Tyburn's practical joke of the previous evening had upset him. He did not like these practical jokes. He was nervous. He felt that at any moment, at a preconcerted signal, the table might blow up, or the ceiling fall down. Everybody else would laugh, and he would hate it. He seldom laughed at anything anybody else laughed at, though he enjoyed some little jokes of his own that nobody else seemed to appreciate. Especially Mabel. She seemed to be enjoying herself at the other side of the table, laughing at the stories that Major Capstan was telling her. From the Major's expression, Luke diagnosed that the stories were not quite--well, not exactly--oh, you know. Would it be Doom Dagshaw or Major Capstan? Oh, what was he thinking of?
Why had he not been put next to Jona? Why did the girl on his right, whom he had never met before, persist in addressing him as Funnyface? Why is a mouse when it spins? The world was full of conundrums.
In the garden after lunch, Jona came straight up to him.
"Well, this morning we played leap-frog down the stairs. That was a little idea of Bill's."
Luke had noticed at lunch that two of the guests wore sticking-plaster on their noses. This explained it.
"I don't think I should like playing leap-frog," he said. "I sometimes play at boats with Dot."
"We'll play at hide-and-seek," said Jona. "You and I will hide together. Come along."
They hid in the cool dusk of the tool-shed. Jona sat on the wheelbarrow and talked, and talked, and talked.
At the end of half-an-hour, Luke had failed to ask her what she had meant by certain things on the day that she had called at his office. He made rather a specialty of not being able to say anything that he particularly wanted to say.
He said: "It's funny they've not found us yet."
"Not so very funny," said Jona. "You see, I forgot to tell any of them that we were going to play this game. Here's one of the gardeners coming. Damn. I suppose we'd better join the rest of the crowd."