"You've never been fighting?" said Lady Drew. "You have been fighting."
"It wasn't proper fighting," snapped Archie, with accusing eyes on me.
"It's Mrs. Ponderevo's George!" said Miss Somerville, so adding a conviction for ingratitude to my evident sacrilege.
"How could he dare?" cried Lady Drew, becoming very awful.
"He broke the rules," said Archie, sobbing for breath. "I slipped, and—he hit me while I was down. He knelt on me."
"How could you dare?" said Lady Drew.
I produced an experienced handkerchief rolled up into a tight ball, and wiped the blood from my chin, but I offered no explanation of my daring. Among other things that prevented that, I was too short of breath.
"He didn't fight fair," sobbed Archie. . . .
Beatrice, from behind the old ladies, regarded me intently and without hostility. I am inclined to think the modification of my face through the damage to my lip interested her. It became dimly apparent to my confused intelligence that I must not say these two had been playing with me. That would not be after the rules of their game. I resolved in this difficult situation upon a sulky silence, and to take whatever consequences might follow.
§9
The powers of justice in Bladesover made an extraordinary mess of my case.
