'George,' said the nurse to the groom, 'you go and get a horse ready. I'll write the telegram.'
'You'd best take Peppermint,' said the coachman. 'She's the fastest.'
The groom went out, saying under his breath, 'Teach your grandmother,' which Philip thought rude and unmeaning.
Philip was standing unnoticed by the door. He felt that thrillif it isn't pleasure it is more like it than anything elsewhich we all feel when something real has happened.
But what had happened. What?
'I wish I'd never come back,' said the nurse. 'Then nobody could pretend it was my fault.'
'It don't matter what they pretend,' the cook stopped crying to say. 'The thing is what's happened. Oh, my goodness. I'd rather have been turned away without a character than have had this happen.'
'And I'd rather anything,' said the nurse. 'Oh, my goodness me. I wish I'd never been born.'
And then and there, before the astonished eyes of Philip, she began to behave as any nice person mightshe began to cry.
'It wouldn't have happened,' said the cook, 'if the master hadn't been away. He's a Justice of the Peace, he is, and a terror to gipsies. It wouldn't never have happened if'
Philip could not bear it any longer.
'What wouldn't have happened if?' he asked, startling everybody to a quick jump of surprise.