“Whitebourne.”
“The very thing, if you’ll give me a lift.”
The doctor watched Ford Aviolet spring with great activity on to the seat of the high dog-cart and adjust himself and his pince-nez with a series of unconscious, accustomed little gestures.
Ford Aviolet had for the past four or five years expressed at intervals a fear that his views were daringly democratic, and the doctor, during a corresponding period, had strongly suspected that he himself was in use as a practical demonstration of Mr. Aviolet’s socialistic tendencies.
The idea had never served to add any charm to their intercourse.
“I suppose you’ve been to see the hope of the house?” Ford’s tone was pensively ironical, as who should hint at inverted commas for the descriptive phrase of which he had made use.
“Your brother’s little boy? Yes. There’s nothing much wrong there—he’ll be running about again in a couple of days.”
“You saw his mother?”
“I did.”
“The likeness between them is rather remarkable. The boy hasn’t anything about him that recalls poor Jim, has he?”