Something in the doctor’s mind seemed to leap to attention. As he held open the drawing-room door, he glanced sharply at Rose.
“We’re all interested in the subject of schools just now,” said Lady Aviolet very placidly, “on little Cecil’s account, you know.”
Rose stared rather stupidly at her mother-in-law out of her big brown eyes, and after an instant Diana Grierson-Amberly broke the awkward little silence.
“But of course——”
The inane little civility seemed to rouse Rose Aviolet.
“There’s no ‘of course’ about it,” she remarked, still in that over-loud voice. “I told Lord Charlesbury that Cecil wasn’t going to be sent to school at all, and what’s more, I’ll tell all of you the same. You needn’t trouble to talk to any more people about it, Ford. It won’t be any use.”
As soon as they had rallied their perceptions—and none of them, the doctor saw, except Ford Aviolet, did so within the first second or two of amazement—the atmosphere became electric as though charged with the force that lay behind Rose’s trenchant syllables.
The boy Toby, with the instincts of his kind, stifled a whistle as it left his lips, and swiftly retreated from the threshold of the room where emotion threatened. Lucian, acutely interested, unconsciously took two steps forward and shut the door.
He saw that Rose Aviolet, taken unawares, was about to force an issue.
Was there to be a scene at Squires after all? His quick glance took in the setting of the odd little drama.