II
Victor Stott did not look at me when I entered his mother’s cottage; I saw only the unattractive exterior of him, and I blundered into an air of patronage.
“Is this your boy?” I said, when I had greeted her. “I hear he is a great scholar.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Ellen Mary quietly. She never boasted to strangers.
“You don’t remember me, I suppose?” I went on, foolishly; trying, however, to speak as to an equal. “You were in petticoats the last time I saw you.”
The Wonder was standing by the window, his arms hanging loosely at his sides; he looked out aslant up the lane; his profile was turned towards me. He made no answer to my question.
“Oh yes, sir, he remembers,” replied Ellen Mary. “He never forgets anything.”
I paused, uncomfortably. I was slightly huffed by the boy’s silence.
“I have come to spend the summer here,” I said at last. “I hope he will come to see me. I have brought a good many books with me; perhaps he might care to read some of them.”
I had to talk at the boy; there was no alternative. Inwardly I was thinking that I had Kant’s Critique and Hegel’s Phenomenology among my books. “He may put on airs of scholarship,” I thought; “but I fancy that he will find those two works rather above the level of his comprehension as yet.” I did not recognise the fact that it was I who was putting on airs, not Victor Stott.
“’E’s given up reading the past six weeks, sir,” said Ellen Mary, “but I daresay he will come and see your books.”
She spoke demurely, and she did not look at her son; I received the impression that her statements were laid before him to take up, reject, or pass unnoticed as he pleased.
I was slightly exasperated. I turned to the Wonder. “Would you care to come?” I asked.
He nodded without looking at me, and walked out of the cottage.
I hesitated.
“’E’ll go with you now, sir,” prompted Ellen Mary. “That’s what ’e means.”
I followed the Wonder in a condition of suppressed irritation. “His mother might be able to interpret his rudeness,” I thought, “but I would teach him to convey his intentions more clearly. The child had been spoilt.”