“And that’s what Aunt Mary says,” interrupted the lad. “She says—— There’s the peacock!”
He had come round the corner, his tail trailing; the poor peahen following humbly behind him, as usual. Arthur went outside the window. The peacock had a most unsociable habit of stalking away with a harsh scream if approached; Arthur knew this, and stayed where he was, talking still with Sir Geoffry. When Lady Chavasse entered, he was deep in a story of the musical box.
“Yes, a wicked boy went into Reuben Noah’s, and broke his box for the purpose. Aunt Mary is letting me get it mended for him with some sixpences I had saved up. Reuben is very ill just now—in great pain; and Aunt Mary has let me lend him mine—he says when he can hear the music, his hip does not hurt him so much. You are not angry with me for lending it, are you, Sir Geoffry?”
“My boy, I am pleased.”
“Why should Sir Geoffry be angry—what is it to him?” cried Lady Chavasse, amused with the chatter.
“Sir Geoffry gave it to me,” said Arthur, looking at her with wide-open eyes, in which the great wonder that any one should be ignorant of that fact was expressed. “Reuben wishes he could get here to see the peacock: but he can’t walk, you know. I painted a beautiful one on paper and took it to him. Aunt Mary said it was not much like a real peacock; it was too yellow. Reuben liked it, and hung it up on his wall. Oh!”
For the stately peacock, stepping past the window as if the world belonged to him, suddenly threw wide his tail in an access of vanity. The tail had not long been renewed, and was in full feather. Arthur’s face went into a radiant glow. Lady Chavasse, smiling at the childish delight, produced some biscuit that the peacock was inordinately fond of, and bade him go and feed it.
“Oh, Geoffry,” she exclaimed in the impulse of the moment, as the boy vaulted away, “if you only had such a son and heir as that!”
“Ay. It might have been, mother. That child himself might have been Sir Arthur after me, had you so willed it.”
“Been Sir Arthur after you!” she exclaimed. “Are you in a dream, Geoffry? That child!”