“Oh, of course, they’ve made him keen, telling him about the games and all the rest of it. He didn’t want to go to school till it was put into his head. You can make a child think it wants anything, even castor oil, if you bluff it enough.”
“But school isn’t a nasty thing, like castor oil,” said Diana, with a sort of ingenious stupidity.
“Chuck it,” Rose advised briefly. “You and me aren’t talking the same language. We shouldn’t understand one another if we went on jawring till we turned black in the face.”
No such disastrous consummation was achieved, but Miss Grierson-Amberly seemed quite unable to abandon the discussion.
“But I do understand you, really and truly I do. Only it seems to me, if you’ll forgive me for saying such a thing, that it would be more unselfish of you to let Cecil do what he wants, and what everybody else thinks best for him, than just to try and make him do what you like. I’m afraid I’m expressing it stupidly, but I daresay you’ll understand. After all, if one loves any one, one wants the best thing for them, doesn’t one? And you know, boys learn heaps of things at school that one simply can’t give them at home—playing the game generally, and esprit de corps, and all that sort of thing.”
“I’ve heard every bit of this before, and I daresay it’s all quite true. But as long as Ces remains what he is, he’ll go to no school. I’d as soon send an epileptic child to school as him.”
“Oh, how can you!” The distress in Diana’s voice was most unmistakably genuine. “Indeed, indeed, I’m certain you’re exaggerating the whole thing most dreadfully. And even if he is as naughty as you think, surely school would be the very——”
“Naughty!” Rose, like an explosion, repeated. “Who said he was naughty? I’ll thank you to keep your advice about my boy till you’ve got one of your own. You’ll know a bit more about it by that time, perhaps.”
For the second time, Diana coloured deeply; but after a moment she said unresentfully:
“I’m afraid I’ve vexed you, and I’m so awfully sorry. I really only said it because I’ve known the Aviolets all my life, and Cecil is such a dear little boy.”