'Oh, about a week,' he told her, giving the answer already used a
dozen times. 'I've just come out for a holiday--first holiday I've had
for twenty years. Fancy that! Pretty long time, eh?'
They simply didn't believe that; they let it pass--politely.
'London's stuffy, you know, just now,' he added, aware that he was
convicted of exaggeration. 'Besides, it's spring.'
'There are millions of flowers here,' Jimbo covered his mistake
kindly, 'millions and millions. Aren't there, Monkey?'
'Oh, billions.'
'Of course,' he agreed.
'And more than anywhere else in the whole world.'
'It looks like that,' said Cousin Henry, as proudly as they said it
themselves. And they told him how they picked clothes-baskets full of
the wild lily of the valley that grew upon the Boudry slopes,
hepaticas, periwinkles, jonquils, blue and white violets, as well as
countless anemones, and later, the big yellow marguerites.
'Then how long are you going to stay--_really_?' inquired Monkey once
again, as though the polite interlude were over. It was a delicate way
of suggesting that he had told an untruth. She looked up straight into
his face. And, meeting her big brown eyes, he wondered a little--for
the first time--how he should reply.
'Daddy came here meaning to stay only six months--first.
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