Reuben Standish’s widowed sister-in-law glided into the room, diffusing an aura of mild beneficence that struck Caine’s nerves to the raw. Her near-sighted eyes turned as in lofty benediction upon the lovers; her thick glasses diffusing and magnifying the glance until it seemed to embrace all the visible world.
Mrs. Standish, on the death of her husband, had come to keep house for her widower brother-in-law. She had brought with her her orphaned grandnephew, Clive, (only son of Letty’s elder brother, long dead), whose upbringing was at once her chief visible claim to sanctity and her scriptural thorn in the flesh.
“Clive has been so bad again this evening!” she said with a sigh, after a distant greeting to Caine, “I suppose these crosses are sent to us. But sometimes I am nearly tempted to wonder why. I actually caught him tacking his grandfather’s slippers to the floor, where I had left them, in front of the chiffonier, in Mr. Standish’s room. I locked him in the nursery for an hour while I prayed to see my duty clear. And when I went to him, strengthened and inspired to make him see his fault, what do you think I found him doing? The hardened boy was actually drawing caricature, depicting his grandfather trying to walk in the tacked-down slippers. He had not even the grace to hide it when he saw me coming. There was nothing left for me to do but to whip him. So I have sent him out to cut a small stick.”
“Poor little chap!” muttered Caine, stifling a smile. He was fond of the boy, who in turn idolized him.
“Perhaps,” went on Amzi, aloud, “If, instead of whipping him, you could let me talk to him and explain—”
“Aunt Lydia!” piped a voice from the doorway. A little Eton-suited boy with a mop of yellow hair and sorrowful dark eyes, hesitated on the threshold.
“Oh, here you are,” added the child, coming into the room and walking straight up to Mrs. Standish. “I—”
“Where is the stick?” asked Nemesis, her glasses reflecting less sanctity than was their custom, as they sought a glimpse of the hands Clive held clasped behind him.
“I’m sorry,” replied the boy, apologetically. “It was so dark I couldn’t find a stick. But,” with a propitiatory smile, as he brought his hands forward, “Here are two stones you can throw at me, instead, if you like.”
Caine’s laughter exploded; breaking in with scandalous intrusion, upon the penitential scene.