“I expect you’re quite right,” he said at length. “And I’m much obliged to you for telling me. How was I to know?” He threw the end of the cigar, with a large sweeping gesture, into the fire.
“Well, anyhow, you know now!” she said curtly; and she thought: “You OUGHT to have known. It was your business to know.” But she was pleased with the way in which he had accepted her criticism, and the gesture with which he threw away the cigar-end struck her as very distinguished.
“That’s all right!” he said dreamily, as if to say: “That’s done with.” And he rose.
Sophia, however, did not stir.
“Your mother’s health is not what it ought to be,” she went on, and gave him a full account of her conversation with the doctor.
“Really!” Cyril murmured, leaning on the mantel-piece with his elbow and looking down at her. “Stirling said that, did he? I should have thought she would have been better where she is, in the Square.”
“Why better in the Square?”
“Oh, I don’t know!”
“Neither do I!”
“She’s always been here.”