“Did Cecil tell you anything? Could he say why he did it?”
“I asked him if it had anything to do with his writing to Uncle A. for money, and he said he wanted the money to pay for the—the silver trophies. He’s had some of them for weeks. I couldn’t ask him about the inscriptions—I couldn’t——”
“No, I see. You know, I think that was part of the same thing as the way he used to talk about imaginary adventures when he was a little fellow. I don’t think he wanted to deceive other people—only himself. He must have had those inscriptions done to try and convince himself that he was something that he wasn’t, and never could be.”
“What were they?” said Rose. “No—don’t tell me. I couldn’t bear it.”
Her voice was choked.
Presently she said: “I suppose, even if we—get him out of this—it’s the end of Cambridge and all that stuff, for Ces?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“We’d better go to the Colonies, he and I. There’s one thing, we can be together. He’s always happy with me, and he’s always loved me best,” she said proudly. “No thanks to them at Squires, either.”
“There’s a pretty considerable chance, Rose, of a job for him when he’s a very little older.”
“You mean the war?”