Colin chose that night to take on an air of offended dignity at his father’s rebuke, and subsided into silence. He knew that every one would feel his withdrawal, and now even Uncle Ronald who, with hardly less aloofness than his mother, for he was buried in his glass and platter, and was remote from everything except his vivid concern with food and drink, tried to entice the boy out of his shell. Colin was pleased at this: it was all salutary for Raymond.
“So you’ve been bathing, Colin,” he said.
“Yes, Uncle Ronald,” said he.
“Pleasant in the water?” asked Uncle Ronald.
“Quite,” said Colin.
Aunt Hester made the next attempt. They were all trying to please and mollify him. “About that walking in the grass in bare feet,” she said. “I should catch cold at my age. And what would my maid think?”
“I don’t know at all, Aunt Hester,” said Colin very sweetly.
Raymond cleared his throat. Colin was being sulky and unpleasant, and he, the eldest, would make things agreeable again. No wonder Colin subsided after that very ill-chosen remark about Aunt Hester.
“There’s a wonderful stride been made in this wireless telegraphy, father,” he said. “There were messages transmitted to Newfoundland yesterday, so I saw in the paper. A good joke about it in Punch. A fellow said, ‘They’ll be inventing noiseless thunder next.’”
There was a dead silence, and then Colin laughed loudly.