George Canninge did not speak. His eyelids drooped over his eyes, and he stood listening, with every nerve upon the stretch; and very slowly and deliberately Mrs Canninge went on—
“I am sure I am very sorry, my dear, for it seems so sad; though, really, I do not see that I need trouble myself about it. The foolish girl, I suppose, wanted money for dress, and having these school funds in her hand—children’s pence and some club money—she made use of them. So foolish, too, my dear, because she must have known that sooner or later, she would be found out.”
“Who has told you this, mother!” said George Canninge sternly.
“I heard it from Beatrice Lambent, my dear, just now. She is in terrible trouble about it.”
“Miss Lambent has been misinformed,” said George Canninge calmly; but it cost him a tremendous effort to speak as he did.
“Oh, dear me, no, my dear George!” exclaimed Mrs Canninge eagerly. “She was present when Mr Piper went to the school to receive the money, and she confessed to having spent it; and it seems that these people are terribly in debt as well.”
“There is some mistake, mother,” said George Canninge again, in the same calm, judicial voice; “it cannot be true.”
“But it is true, my dear boy,” persisted Mrs Canninge, who, woman of the world as she was, had not the prudence upon this occasion to leave her words to rankle in her son’s breast, but tried to drive them home with others in her eagerness to excite disgust with an object upon which George Canninge seemed to have set his mind.
“I say, mother, that it cannot be true,” he said, speaking very sternly now; and he crossed the room.
“You are not going out dear?” said Mrs Canninge. “I want to talk to you a little more.”