"I hope you won't let Cecil instil his wretched Radical principles into the boy's mind before he's able to think for himself."
"He thinks for himself already," said Sophy, with a slight smile.
"Well—who knows? We may yet give another famous man to the Conservative cause," said Lady Wychcote, still gazing at Bobby. Then she said to him:
"Come to your grandmother, child."
Sophy impelled him forward, and he went slowly but steadily, and stood before the young-old lady, his hands behind him, his little stomach thrust forward. It was the true statesman's attitude. But Bobby was only wondering why the lady had black specks all over her face, and whether the bird on her brown velvet hat could cry "cuckoo" like the one in the nursery clock.
And to Sophy there came the words of Constance:
"Do, child, go to it, grandam, child:
Give grandam kingdom, and it' grandam will
Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig."
For it galled her that Lady Wychcote should never have shown the least interest in the boy, until it had occurred to her that some day he might serve her ambition.
Chesney saw his mother for a few minutes before she went. He was languid but apparently quite normal. He exaggerated this languor, as later on he exaggerated a certain nervousness consequent on the fact that he dared not take as much morphia as he really wanted, fearing that Gaynor, at least, might suspect something, and well aware that a man under reduced doses of the drug shows symptoms of extreme weakness and restlessness. When she asked if he would see Craig Hopkins that afternoon, he replied good-humouredly:
"Bring in the performing poodles as soon as you like. Since I'm in for it, the show might as well begin promptly."