"Cyril, you ought to go to bed."
"I don't mind if I do," Cyril said, with unlooked-for submission; and after a good-night kiss, he vanished.
But the kiss was a cold one. Sybella's accusation of Jean could not be easily forgotten.
Sybella was in her element next day; and all her foreboding cares were rewarded; for Cyril had a cold. She could indulge herself to any extent in that most ardent delight of a small mind—the reiteration of the formula, "I told you so!"
Had she not warned Cyril? Had she not prophesied results? Had she not begged, implored, insisted? And had he not refused to hear? Now the consequences had arrived—just as she had known, just as she had expected, just as she had declared would be the case!
"I told you how it would be!" she said again and again, with her grating self-satisfaction.
There could be no mistake about the matter. Cyril came down to breakfast, hoarse as a raven, sneezing, heavy-eyed, feverish and listless. He did his best to talk in a natural voice, but the effort was a failure.
And every time he coughed, Sybella said "Ah!" 'expressively.
She was so gratified with her own sagacity, as quite to have recovered her good-humour.
All breakfast-time, she plied Cyril with questions. Had he a pain here, a feeling of tightness there, a kind of oppression within, a sort of chilliness everywhere? Had he—