She had betrayed her sister more than she thought, even though Jackson didn’t particularly show it in the tone in which he commented: “Of course she knows she’s going to see your mother in the summer.” His tone was rather that of irritation at so much harping on the very obvious.
“Oh it isn’t only mamma,” the girl said.
“I know she likes a cool house,” Mrs. Lemon contributed.
“When she goes you had better bid her good-bye,” Lady Agatha went on.
“Of course I shall bid her good-bye,” said Mrs. Lemon, to whom apparently this remark was addressed.
“I’ll never bid you good-bye, Princess,” Herman Longstraw interposed. “You can bet your life on that.”
“Oh it doesn’t matter about me, for of course I shall come back; but if Barb once gets to England she never will.”
“Oh my dear child!” Mrs. Lemon wailed, addressing her young visitor, but looking at her son, who on his side looked at the ceiling, at the floor, looked above all very conscious.
“I hope you don’t mind my saying that, Jackson dear,” Lady Agatha said to him, for she was very fond of her brother-in-law.
“Ah well then, she shan’t go there,” he threw off in a moment with a small strange dry laugh that attached his mother’s eyes in shy penetration to his face.