“A special privilege, John,” she returned obligingly—and if she were addressing the child she looked directly at the man—“that sort of special privilege, is a favour one extends to a person one likes, in return for a similar favour. I don’t think that is much clearer,” she added, and suddenly felt herself blushing beneath Mr Musgrave’s steady gaze.
“The definition is perfectly obvious,” he replied. “But I fancy we have both been talking over John’s head.”
Peggy stooped abruptly and kissed the child. When she straightened herself she moved away with him and joined Mrs Sommers.
Chapter Seventeen.
John Musgrave Sommers was in disgrace. He had been guilty of impertinence to Eliza; worse, he had committed an assault by kicking her maliciously with intent to do bodily harm. Eliza had complained to Mr Musgrave, and had presented his nephew’s conduct in the light of an enormity which she could not overlook until adequate measures had been taken to correct this infantile depravity, and so insure against a repetition of the offence.
Mr Musgrave carried the complaint to his sister and supported her with his presence, if with little else, in her attempt to bring the delinquent to a proper state of repentance. John Musgrave Sommers presented a defiant front and refused with all the obstinate inflexibility of his five years to acknowledge himself in the wrong.
“It was very wicked of you to kick Eliza,” his mother insisted. “When you are in a better frame of mind you will realise that. You must go to her and tell her you are sorry.”
“I’m not sorry,” John returned stoutly, with a watchful eye on his uncle, whose displeasure was manifest and the quality of whose anger John, not being familiar with, was anxious to test before provoking it further with possible unpleasant results to himself.