Cyril's rush upstairs had been instinctive, his rush downstairs unpremeditated. He had merely escaped by the easiest method.
"I shall have to take stronger measures. He has never shown such a rebellious spirit before. So strange and unlike him—it really is most sad. Standing alone, as I do—with no one to appeal to—except of course General Villiers, and he is entirely managed by his wife."
Sybella did not show profound knowledge here, but she would have maintained the statement through thick and thin.
"I really am quite at a loss what to do. Of course one can see whose influence has been at work. Yes—come in."
"Lady Lucas is downstairs, ma'am."
Sybella had to smooth her ruffled plumage, and to hasten to the drawing-room, where Lady Lucas sat on the chief sofa—a large woman, plump and round, and clothed in black brocaded silk, almost stiff enough to stand on end. In youth she had been pretty, but her features had expanded with her frame into a rotund shapelessness, and the distinguishing characteristic of her countenance was its extent of cheek. There was also a superfluity of chin, though not of forehead, and her eyes were surrounded by cushions, which left only two slim crevices when she smiled.
She was the very picture of dignified geniality greeting Sybella with effusive affection; and the effect of her effusiveness was to call forth the gush always latent in Sybella, albeit trampled under feet by an irresponsive world. Sybella aught sigh, and clasp her hands, and gaze with appreciative eyes, to any extent, in Lady Lucas' presence.
Tea came in, and Sybella poured it out in a vague and poetical manner. She forgot the sugar, and then the cake; and she blushed and sighed over her own mistakes, pleading absorption of mind.
Lady Lucas had no objection to absorbed minds in the abstract. Indeed she thought it rather interesting to see Sybella go off into a mild dream, with clasped hands, and eyes riveted on the top-point of the banner-screen; but she was too old fashioned not to like sugar.
"No innovations for me, my dear!" she said magisterially, when Sybella offered the sugar-basin, and she helped herself to three big lumps. "Tea was meant to be taken with sugar. Leaving it off is all a fad of the present day."