“Yes, if they want him to.”
Rose was quite steady and resolved upon that point. She herself was afraid of horses, knowing nothing about them. Her stock comment, at the Sunday after-church progress of inspection round the stables, was always: “That horse is a pretty colour, isn’t it?” But she was eager that Cecil should be less ignorant than she was herself, and proud that he should have learnt to ride. She began to tell Miss Grierson-Amberly of his prowess, boasting freely, and almost unheeding of the civil sounds of interest and attention that her companion from time to time emitted. Indeed, as they returned to the house, Rose was inwardly congratulating herself naïvely on having found a congenial topic that had caused the time to pass so quickly.
In the hall she stopped dead, and jerked her head in the direction of Lady Aviolet’s morning-room, of which the door stood ajar, revealing a glimpse of the grey-headed, square-shouldered figure at the table.
“I say—you ask her, won’t you?”
“Ask her—who? What?”
“If Ces may come out to lunch with us,” whispered Rose, like a schoolgirl. “I don’t like to, and besides she’ll be more likely to say Yes if you ask.”
Diana laughed rather uncertainly, as though slightly disconcerted by the manner of the request, but she obligingly made her suggestion to Lady Aviolet.
“A very good idea, if Rose will allow it, and there is no objection on the score of lessons. Rose, will you arrange it with Miss Wade, my dear?”
Lady Aviolet always deferred to Cecil’s mother in all such minor questions, and yet Rose never doubted for a moment that the older woman deplored her upbringing of little Cecil, and looked forward to his schooldays as to a time of regeneration.
As she thought of it, Rose’s young face assumed slowly a look of almost mule-like stubbornness. It was as though, like an animal, she was unable to formulate the terms of her problem rationally, and sought refuge in blind, unassailable instinct.