‘All night long, in a dream untroubled of hope
He brooded, clasping his knees.’
‘Untroubled of hope.’ Do you see what I mean?”
“Yes. Oh, poor little Cecil—at his age!”
“I may be wrong.”
But Henrietta did not think that her brother was wrong.
They saw Cecil Aviolet several times during his holidays. He seemed to like coming to them, and Dr. Lucian encouraged his visits.
One day he said to him casually: “Most youngsters get bullied during their first term. Between ourselves, didn’t you find that?”
“No,” said Cecil, and added, a shade too promptly, “no—I think the fellows like me, rather. I’ve got heaps of friends already.”
He looked up with his disarming, ingenuous smile, and immediately afterwards looked down. The doctor had seen Cecil Aviolet do just exactly that, once before. He had been a little boy then, taxed by his grandmother with the theft of a toy. And he had denied it, with that same look.