“It’s extremely easy to say ‘if,’ isn’t it?”
“Thirty-four—thirty-five—” came softly from his mother. Then she raised her eyes.
“Children never seem ordinary to their parents,” she remarked comfortably. “I had to part with both my boys, Rose, my dear, and you’ll find that poor little Cecil will be much easier to manage after he’s seen something of other boys.”
Rose clenched both hands, as though the sense of being at cross-purposes might drive her to physical violence.
It was evident enough to Lucian that her fierce arguments had conveyed no slightest sense of her meaning to any one in the room save to himself and to Ford Aviolet.
It was again to Ford that she addressed herself, although the light in her eyes as she faced him held something very like hatred.
“You know what I mean. You know perfectly well. I’m not just a fool of a mother saying that she won’t let her little darling go and rough it. I’d let Ces go to school to-morrow, if he wasn’t what he is. You all know what’s wrong with him. He can’t tell the truth. How do you suppose they’ll deal with that at a big school?”
“Successfully, I hope,” said Ford, with an emphasis on the first word. “On your own showing, a home education hasn’t cured the boy of an extremely unpleasant trick. It’s a very good argument for trying a new system.” He looked round, very quietly triumphant, and as his eye caught that of Diana Grierson-Amberly, he smiled slightly.
Then the girl spoke, suddenly and rather breathlessly, turning with a little air of pleading, to Rose Aviolet.
“You know, my brothers are awfully happy at school. Tony’s at Eton still, and he simply loves it. The games and things, you know.”