“Is he generally the hero of his own stories?”
“I suppose he is. He tells me about things that he says happened to him, and he really and truly describes it all just as if he’d seen it.”
“I daresay. Has the tendency always been there?”
“Pretty well always. He used to hear Jim boasting very often, and I know I exaggerate myself, when I talk, and always did, though God knows I’m trying all I know to get out of it now. But Jim used to make Ces worse by frightening him. He’d ask him questions, just as if he was laying a trap for him, and then Ces would fib, and his father would whip him. So next time he’d be scared, and not know what he was saying, and contradict himself because he’d see Jim didn’t believe him.”
“Poor little fellow!”
She threw him a very expressive look of gratitude.
“That’s awfully decent of you. Everybody up there is shocked at him, poor little boy. They haven’t the imagination to be sorry for him. I wish I could get him right away with me somewhere.”
“Can’t you?” said Miss Lucian.
“Well, I haven’t got a penny. Jim left nothing but debts, and his father gives me an allowance. I’d rather earn my own living, but of course they wouldn’t hear of that, because of Cecil—besides, I’m sure I don’t know what I could do that would bring in anything worth having. Their plan is to keep us hanging on at Squires till Ces goes to school, and then I suppose they’d let me go off on my own, and bring him there just for the holidays. But that’s exactly where me and them will come to loggerheads, one of these days.”
The doctor looked at her attentively. He was extremely interested in Rose Aviolet.