"Because I thought you looked frightened, and I didn't like it; you looked like Mummy did sometimes."
No one who has seen fear stamped upon a woman's face ever forgets it. Tony had watched his aunt all tea-time, and this quite new expression troubled him. Mummy had always seemed to want him when she looked like that; perhaps Auntie Jan would want him too. The moment his hands were dried he had rushed past Meg and down the stairs with William in his wake. Meg had not tried to stop him, for she, too, realised that something worried Jan, and she knew that already there had arisen an almost unconscious entente between these two. But she had no idea that he had gone out of doors. She dressed little Fay and took her out to the garden, thinking that Tony and Jan were probably in the nursery, and she was careful not to disturb them.
"Are you cold, Tony?" Jan asked anxiously, walking so fast that Tony had almost to run to keep up with her.
"No, not very; it's a nice coldness rather, don't you think?"
"Tony, will you tell me—when Daddie was angry with you, were you never frightened?"
Tony pulled at her hand to make her go more slowly. "Yes," he said, "I used to feel frightened inside, but I wouldn't let him know it, and then—it was funny—but quite sunn'ly I wasn't frightened any more. You try it."
"You mean," Jan asked earnestly, "that if you don't let anyone else know you are frightened, you cease to be frightened?"
"Something like that," Tony said; "it just happens."