There was Nicky. She could do nothing with him; she could make no impression on him.
There was Michael. She couldn't make him out. He loved them, and showed that he loved them; but it was by caresses, by beautiful words, by rare, extravagant acts of renunciation, inconsistent with his self-will; not by anything solid and continuous. There was a softness in Michael that distressed and a hardness that perplexed her. You could make an impression on Michael--far too easily--and the impression stayed. You couldn't obliterate it. Michael's memory was terrible. And he had secret ways. He was growing more and more sensitive, more and more wrapped up in Himself. Supposing Michael became a morbid egoist, like Anthony's brother, Bartholomew?
And there was Dorothy. She went her own way more than ever, with the absolute conviction that it was the right way. Nothing could turn her. At thirteen her body was no longer obedient. Dorothy was not going to be her mother's companion, or her father's, either; she was Rosalind Jervis's companion. She seemed to care more about little fat, fluffy Rosalind than about any of them except Nicky. Dorothy was interested in Michael; she respected his queer thoughts. It was as if she recognized some power in him that could beat her somewhere some day, and was humble before a thing her cleverness had failed to understand. But it was Nicky that she adored, not Michael; and she was bad for Nicky. She encouraged his naughtiness because it amused her.
Frances foresaw that a time would come, a little later, when Nicky and Dorothy would be companions, not Nicky and his mother.
In the evenings, coming home from the golf-links, Frances and Anthony discussed their children.
Frances said, "You can't make any impression on Nicky. There seems to be no way that you can get at him."
Anthony thought there was a way. It was a way he had not tried yet, that he did not want to try. But, if he could only bring himself to it, he judged that he could make a distinct impression.
"What the young rascal wants is a thorough good spanking," said Anthony.
Nicky said so too.
The first time he got it Nicky's criticism was that it wasn't a bad idea if his father could have pulled it off all right. But he said, "It's no good if you do it through the cloth. And it's no good unless you want to hurt me, Daddy. And you don't want. And even if you did want, badly enough to try and hurt, supposing you spanked ever so hard, you couldn't hurt as much as my earache. And I can bear that."