“Ha! ha! Nancy,” said her husband, “listen with all your ears now; this youngster is about to lift the curtain and show you the sort of man you have deigned to marry.”
“Perhaps you can make him good all round,” said the boy, suddenly fixing his bright eyes on Nancy’s soft face; “he is not good all round now—he is not good to my mother.” The boy stepped back two or three inches, and flung back his beautiful noble head.
“Silence, this moment, sir,” said Rowton. His voice rose; it seemed to fill the big room. “Leave the room, Murray,” he said. “You have transgressed your limits; you have a certain tether and you have gone beyond it; leave the room.”
“I will, but I am not frightened,” said the boy. He still stood upright with his head flung back, but Nancy saw that his delicate lips were trembling.
“You are cruel to my mother, Uncle Adrian, and when I think of it, I—I hate you.” He turned then and marched proudly away.
It seemed a long time to the listeners up at the warmly-lighted part of the room, until they heard the last echo of his little footsteps, and the banging of the door in the dim distance as he walked away; then they both looked one at the other. Nancy’s face was white and troubled; tears were in her eyes; Adrian was looking full at her.
“That little turkey cock must be quieted,” he said; “he takes too much on him; you are not to spoil him, Nancy, do you hear?”
“But what does he mean?” asked Nancy; “he says that you—you are cruel to someone.”
“Come back to the drawing-room with me, sweet Nance.”