“Roger, this is your younger brother, Hugo; I hope you will be good friends.”
To have an unknown brother sprung on one would have disconcerted an older and wiser person than poor little Roger Egremont. He became still whiter as his dark eyes grew larger and darker, and he glanced uneasily from his father to the new brother, without making any advance at all. Hugo, a tall, well-grown boy, was the image of his father, and Roger made the alarming discovery that Hugo was much bigger than he, and instead of his licking Hugo, Hugo would be quite able to lick him. The two lads looked at each other for a moment, and then Hugo, slipping off his chair, ran forward and kissed his half-brother on both cheeks, French fashion.
To be kissed at all was disconcerting to Roger, and to be kissed by another boy was an insult and a humiliation. Roger’s reception, therefore, of these endearments was a vigorous push.
“I’ll shake hands if you like,” he said sulkily, “but I’ll have no kissing.”
John Egremont, secretly enraged, could not but remember that any English boy would resent such an advance. He said, therefore, without any exhibition of wrath: “Your brother has been brought up abroad, and does not know English manners, although he speaks English. But you two should have fine times together. Hugo will live here after this.”
The two boys eyed each other distrustfully. It vexed their father to see how much taller and bigger was Hugo, the alleged younger, than Roger. Hugo was a handsomer boy, but Roger had more the air of a gentleman.
They shook hands, nevertheless, and Hugo, making a pirouette, said something in French and something in German to his father, quite as if they were equals: and John Egremont laughed, while Hugo burst into the fragment of a song about Ce monstre là which seemed to tickle his father mightily.
All this time a thousand maddening questions were chasing each other through Roger’s disturbed mind. Had he a step-mother, and any more brothers and sisters? He had an immediate opportunity of finding this out, for their father at once dismissed them, thinking they would the more speedily become friends alone.
Once outside, upon the terrace that led down to the fish pond, Roger turned to Hugo, and asked,—
“Where is your mother?”