"Damned little sneak!" he cried, his face convulsed. "Why the devil didn't he say so to me?" His language became so outrageous that Sophy rose, saying:
"I must leave you, if you talk like this."
Something in her white face—a sort of smothered loathing—checked him.
"See here," he said, mastering himself by a violent effort—a vein in the middle of his forehead stood out dark and purplish; "now just try to take this in, all of you—my well-wishers. To do anything with me whatever, you've got to be straight with me, by God! I'll not have sneaking, and confabulations in dark corners. And make that little eunuch Bellamy understand it, or I'll pitch him out of window, neck and crop, the next time he sets foot in this house!"
Sophy felt that he was to a certain extent justified in his anger. She promised for Bellamy that he would say things directly to Cecil himself in future.
Then she went away to the nursery for solace, sick at heart, sick at brain, sick in spirit.
To her amazement she found Lady Wychcote there, seated in a chair before the fire with Bobby on her knee. He was babbling excitedly, and his grandmother was smiling at him with that appraising look in her eyes which Sophy so resented. The boy tried to snap his soft, curled fingers at his mother as soon as he caught sight of her, in his eagerness to have her come near.
"Muvvah!" he cried. "Oh, Muvvah! Ganny div Bobby gee-gee!"
"Yes. I'm going to give him a Shelty," said Lady Wychcote. "It's high time the boy learned how to ride."
"It's very good of you," said Sophy, pleased for the child's delight. "But he's only two, you know."