"My name's Bobby," came the small but haughty voice. At times her son reminded Sophy strikingly of Cecil. This was just Cecil's tone with presuming strangers.
"Very well, Bobby—do you know why it's good for me to be laughed at, but not for you?"
"I don't fink it matters," said Chesney's son, again in exactly the tone that Chesney would have used. Sophy felt too awed to feel amused. She felt that with the law of continuance thus powerful, death, in one sense, ceased to exist.
"You don't like me, do you, Bobby?" asked Loring, looking queerly at the child.
"Not much—p'ease to 'scuse me," replied Bobby.
"Funny little tot you are," said Loring, rather hurt. Then, to his surprise, he suddenly realised that he on his side, didn't really like Bobby. It seemed as if the child came wilfully between him and Sophy. He walked on moodily, cutting with his riding-crop at the pyred flames of golden-rod, his handsome, short-lipped mouth very sullen.
"What's the matter?" asked Sophy, to break another too long silence. "You look like a tinted marble of Endymion in the sulks."
Loring turned on her passionately.
"Mrs. Chesney," said he, "would you mind letting up on my rotten appearance! It isn't my fault that I've got a nose like a damned statue's!"
His face was scarlet. Sophy put her hands up to her own face to temper the brutality of her wild mirth.