“It’s about my sister-in-law, Rose. I know Miss Lucian is a friend of hers—and you, too, of course. And I wondered if perhaps she’d been talking to you about Cecil.”
She paused, but Lucian felt no inclination to help her out. He remained unsympathetically silent.
“I do so wish that we could get her to take it more lightly.”
“It?”
“Cecil—everything to do with Cecil. I’m really awfully fond of Rose, Dr. Lucian, and it quite worries me to see her upsetting herself like this. Of course I know she is upset, any one could see it. The very way she looks at Cecil—it’s enough to make the boy hopelessly self-conscious. I daresay you noticed at lunch. Ford chaffs him the least little bit in the world, and Rose either loses her temper, or looks as though she were going to cry. It’s really wonderful that Cecil isn’t a great deal more of a spoilt child than he is.”
“Do you think that you understand Cecil, Mrs. Aviolet?”
“Is there much to understand in a boy of that age?”
“You think there isn’t?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Diana was obviously uneasy at the turn taken by the conversation. “I suppose a boy of Cecil’s age can’t be very interesting, except to his mother, but at the same time——”
“I can assure you that I find Cecil very interesting indeed, quite apart from his connection with Squires. From a psychological point of view, you know, Cecil is rather—unique.”