Roy considered that dismal proposition, with his eyes on the summer world outside.
"Well—you can if you like. But it wouldn't be fair." A pause. "You don't know what a horrid boy he was, Daddy. You'd have hit him harder—even if he was a guest."
"I wonder!" Nevil fatally admitted. "Of course it would all depend on the provocation."
"What's 'provication'?"
The instant alertness, over a new word, brought back the smile to Nevil's eyes.
"It means—saying or doing something bad enough to make it right for you to be angry."
"Well, it was bad enough. It was"—a portentous pause—"about Mummy."
"About Mummy?" The sharp change in his father's tone was at once startling and comforting. "Look here, Roy. No more mysteries. This is my affair as much as yours. Come here."
Pulling a bedside chair near the window, he sat down and drew Roy close to him, taking his shoulders between his hands.
"Now then, old boy, tell me just exactly what happened—as man to man."