“At my nephew,” Ford answered very gently. “He amuses me, that’s all. His manners are so refreshing.”
“Take your elbows off the table, Cecil,” said Lady Aviolet quickly.
“Do you still make your own cheeses here, Lady Aviolet?” said the doctor. “That’s a fine one you have there.”
The old lady, gratified, began to speak of her dairy. She was very proud of it. Ford glanced at the doctor.
The doctor gave him a grim little nod. “Quite right,” he silently assured Ford, “I’m up to your game, and I’m out to stop it. And I don’t mind your knowing it, either.”
Nobody else knew it.
Diana Aviolet was listening, her lips ajar, to her mother-in-law, Sir Thomas was signing imperatively to a servant, Rose was looking at her boy, Cecil, the doctor thought, seemed impervious to everything except to some inner preoccupation that had become part of his being.
Quite suddenly, a very horrible recollection came to Dr. Lucian.
He had once seen a trapped animal that was being devoured alive by vermin.
For an instant, he sought in vain for the association with his present surroundings. The next moment the analogy had flashed upon him, sickening him momentarily.