“That did not make it right for you not to be obedient,” said Carey, trying for severity.
“But we couldn’t, mother.”
“Couldn’t?” both echoed.
“No,” said Jock, “or we should be still in Piccadilly. Mother Carey, she told us not to cross till it was safe.”
“And she stood up like the Duke of Bedford in the Square,” added Armine.
Janet caught her mother’s eye, and both felt a spasm of uncontrollable diversion in their throats, making Janet turn her back, and Carey gasp and turn on the boys.
“All that is no reason at all. Go up to the nursery. I wish I could trust you to behave like a gentleman, when your aunt is so kind as to take you out.”
“I did, mother! I did hand her across the street, and dragged her out from under all the omnibus horses,” said Jock in an injured tone, while Janet could not refrain from a whispered comparison, “Like a little steam-tug,” and this was quite too much for all of them, producing an explosion which made the tall and stately dame look from one to another in such bewildered amazement, that struck the mother and daughter as so comical that the one hid her face in her hands with a sort of hysterical heaving, and the other burst into that painful laughter by which strained spirits assert themselves in the young.
Mrs. Robert Brownlow, in utter astonishment and discomfiture, turned and walked off to her own room. Somehow Carey and Janet felt more on their ordinary terms than they had done all these sad days, in their consternation and a certain sense of guilt.
Carey could adjudicate now, though trembling still. She made Jock own that his Serpentine plans had been unjustifiable, and then she added, “My poor boy, I must punish you. You must remember it, for if you are not good and steady, what will become of us.”