"I don't like you to say that. It sounds as if when you do get the chance—But perhaps you'll know better by that time. It's something I hope Guy will help you to see in return for all the—well, the physical protection you give him."
"Oh, but, ma'am, I—"
"That'll do. I know my boy is brave. But I know too that he's not very strong, and to have a great fellow like you, used to roughing it—It reminds me of the big Cossack who always goes round with the little Tsarevitch. Not that Guy is as young as that, but he's been tenderly brought up."
"Oh, mother, give us a rest!" Guy had rushed into his flowered room from whatever errand had taken him away. "If I have been tenderly brought up, I'm as tough to-day as any mucker down where Tom lives."
"The dear boy!"
She smiled at Tom, as at one who like herself understood this extravagance, moving away with the stately lilt that made her skirts flounce up and down.
"It's Hildred that's sicking the old lady on to her little song and dance in your favor," Guy declared, when they had the room to themselves again. "Hildred likes you. Always has. She's democratic, too, just like me. Once let a fellow be a sport and Hildred wouldn't care what he was socially."
"Keep your mouth shut and live," became Tom's daily self-adjuration. That Guy sincerely liked him he was sure, and this in itself meant much to him. The patronage could be smiled away. If he and his mother failed in tact they gave him much in compensation. In their house he was getting accustomed to certain small usages which at first had overawed him. Space didn't dwarf him any more, nor beauty strike him spellbound. He was so courteous to Pilcher that Pilcher, returning deference for deference, had once or twice called him "sir." The plays to which Guy took him were a long step in his education; the music they heard together released a whole new range in his emotions.
He discovered that Guy was what is commonly called musical. He played the piano not badly; he knew something of the classics, of the great romanticists, of the moderns. Back of the library was a music room, and when other occupations palled, there Guy would play and explain, while Tom sat listening and enjoying. Guy liked explaining; it showed his superiority. Tom liked to learn. To know the difference between Mozart and Beethoven was a stage in progress. To have the cabalistic names of Wagner and Debussy, which he had often seen in newspapers, spring to significance was an initiation into mysteries.