“And have them badger me about school again?”
“I don’t think they will. Besides, you know,” he smiled at her, “I’m still secretly hoping that Hurst and Mrs. Lambert will make a difference to your views. You see, supposing Cecil went there for a term or two, it would be simply experiment. It need not commit you to sending him to a public school later on. It may, even, prove to the Aviolets that your idea is correct, and Cecil is unsuited to school-life altogether. Hurst would be the test.”
“It sounds to me like the thin end of the wedge,” said Rose bluntly. “But, at least, you do see my point of view, and don’t talk as if I were a fool that just couldn’t face parting with her darling.”
“I know very well that you only want what will be best for the boy in the long run,” said Charlesbury gravely.
“That’s all. And it isn’t only the long run. It’s now, too. He isn’t well and happy like he was there. I never realized the difference that fresh air, and plenty of room, and the best of everything can make to a kid.”
“It does make a difference,” Charlesbury said levelly. “And moral fitness depends a great deal on physical fitness, doesn’t it, so that one wants to keep them up to the mark, from every point of view.”
Rose gazed at him, her honest, startled eyes full of a new apprehension.
“You mean that it mayn’t even be the best thing for his—his character, to take him away from Squires? Oh, I never thought of that.”
Charlesbury let her assimilate it in silence, her strong, capable hand twisting the wedding-ring on her big, straight-cut finger.
At last she lifted her head. “Perhaps you’re right. And, anyway, I don’t know how I can stand him being ill, and not comfortable. Though mind you,” she added with sudden warmth, “my Uncle Alfred that I’m with, he’s as kind as ever he can be, and had a fire lit on purpose for Ces—and he’s on the near side, is Uncle A., so it means something, coming from him. But, of course, his house isn’t run like Squires is, not by long chalks, and there’s no use pretending it is.”