“Is this ridiculous drawing business the only thing that’s gone wrong? Was there really nothing else?” Rose demanded.
“Nothing.”
They looked at one another in a common dismay.
“I should like to hear the whole story,” said Lady Aviolet, determination evident in her deliberate selection of a chair for herself.
Miss Wade repeated the trivial episode, and its totally disproportionate climax.
“He was just angry because you laughed at him?”
“I suppose so. Not that I should think so much of that, Lady Aviolet, in a child that isn’t used to other children and has never learnt to give and take, or to tease and be teased—but the temper! The rage!! The expressions he used!!! And worst of all, the readiness to say what isn’t true. It’s the old, old failing, you know. Declaring that he’d done it badly on purpose, you know—his mother heard him.”
“He didn’t know what he was saying,” Rose repeated roughly.
“That makes it so much the worse, my dear,” her mother-in-law unexpectedly remarked. “It’s almost as though the poor child lied by instinct, not caring what nonsense he may be talking.”
“I thought him nearly cured, too,” said Miss Wade mournfully. “I’m afraid—I really am afraid, Lady Aviolet—that I’ve failed with Cecil. It’s the first time I’ve ever had to say such a thing of a pupil, but I do certainly feel that, except as regards mere book-learning, he’s made little or no progress since I’ve had him. The truth is, there have been too many interruptions—a divided authority—” she glanced resentfully at Cecil’s mother.