Dr. Lucian shrugged his shoulders.
“Besides, he stuck to it afterwards. Nothing would make him own that it wasn’t true. Dawson tried to make him say he’d just been inventing, and I asked him about it myself. But he kept on saying: ‘It is true, it is true.’ It really seemed as though the child had made himself believe in his own invention.”
“Very imaginative children may sometimes be really incapable of distinguishing fancy from fact.”
“Then all I can say is, they’re not normal,” said Lady Aviolet with decision.
She looked very unhappy, and it was evident that by “normal” she really meant sane.
“Is there anything else—besides the boasting, I mean?”
“Anything else? I don’t know what more you want,” said poor Lady Aviolet, with a certain tartness in her manner. “He is always telling us about things that never happened, and it’s perfectly impossible to depend on his account of anything. And if there’s one thing Sir Thomas finds it hard to forgive, it’s any least little want of openness. He is dreadfully disturbed about it.”
“And your son?”
“Ford hasn’t seen as much of him as we have, besides he’s been away on business since they came. But of course Ford will take him in hand. It’s my one hope. But mercifully, poor Jim left the guardianship of his boy to Ford—jointly with Rose, of course.”
“She is very young?”