Tom thought it an opportunity to learn whether or not the boy had been conscious of what he did. "Ask Tad Whitelaw."
"What? You don't mean to say you've had another row with him! Gee whiz!"
"No, I haven't had another row with him; but all the same, ask him."
Guy asked him, with no information but that the mucker would get another if he didn't keep out of the way. It was all Tom needed to know. He had not been too drunk to strike with deliberate intention, and to remember that he had struck.
Guy must have told Hildred, because she wrote begging Tom to come to see her. He wasn't to mind his black eye, because she knew all about it. She was tender, consoling.
"I don't believe he's a cad any more than I believe that of Lily," she said, while giving him a cup of tea, "but they're both spoiled with money and a sense of self-importance. You see, losing the other child has made their mother foolish about them. She's lavished everything on them, more than anyone, not a born saint, could stand. It would have been a great deal better if they'd had to fight their way—some of their way at any rate—like you."
"Oh, I'm another breed."
"Another figurative breed—yes. As to the breed in your blood—"
"Oh, but, Hildred, you don't believe that poppy-cock."
Her eyes were on the teapot from which she was pouring. "I don't believe it exactly because I don't know. It only strikes me as being very queer."