“It’s a very thick towel,” said Cecil, examining the coarse cotton fibre, “and there’s no hot water.”
“Cold will do,” said Rose curtly.
For the first time it occurred to her that the months Cecil had spent at Squires were as a lifetime to his childishness. He had come to take the material comforts, to which Rose was naturally indifferent, for granted. And it appeared that to him they were not indifferent.
He was very good during supper, but the cold mutton and salad did not attract him, and the cheese that concluded the meal, Rose would not let him eat. She remembered with a pang of remorse his mug of fresh milk and his plate of biscuits, brought on a tray to the nursery at Squires every evening.
“But I’ll be able to fix it all up with Uncle A. to-morrow,” she thought.
For her own part, she felt herself to have come home again. There had hardly been a moment at Squires when she had not known constraint of spirit, and her dependence upon entertainers whom she whole-heartedly disliked had galled her incessantly.
Both Millar and the young assistant, a pale-faced youth introduced to her as Felix Menebees, had supper with them.
As soon as the meal was over, Rose took Cecil upstairs and put him to bed.
He was quiet, and seemed rather inclined to cry, but Rose effectually checked this by a promise of the Zoo, and by undertaking to come to bed herself in a very short time.
He had become accustomed to a night-light and she was obliged to leave the gas lighted—the electric light was confined to the shop downstairs—after making him promise that he would not touch it.