“That is not the point. Taking the box was mischievous and ill-bred, even dishonest, if he has been taught the commandments, as I suppose he has,” said Lady Aviolet, rather as though supposing the reverse. “But to own to you that he’d taken it, and then deny it flatly to us, is simply pointless falsehood for the sake of falsehood. I told him no one would be angry if he told the truth.”
“Well, he won’t now,” said Rose Aviolet, and she took the little boy away.
He was still crying, and they could hear him, as Rose pulled him up the stairs, repeating like an automaton: “I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t!”
Lady Aviolet looked terribly distressed, but she turned with a rather pathetic politeness to her visitor. “I’m sorry to have inflicted a nursery court-martial upon you. I never dreamt of this. The boy had confessed to his mother. His lies just now were not only wicked, but utterly pointless. I couldn’t have believed it.”
“The child is vain and sensitive. I can imagine that when he saw what he had done looked upon as a—an act of dishonesty, it may have become extraordinarily difficult to him to own to it in front of other people. His denials struck me as being instinctive, rather than based on any idea of deceiving.”
Lady Aviolet looked utterly at a loss.
“But how terrible, if he is to tell lies by instinct,” she said helplessly. “It seems like some frightful taint. Heaven knows, he never got it from the Aviolets.”
She caught herself up, almost upon the words, with the implication they carried.
“I will fetch your little box, Dr. Lucian.” She went away, leaving the doctor thoughtful and strangely saddened.
“I hope they won’t tell Ford,” was the outcome of his reflections.