"He likes the school; he does not like his companions," answered Mrs. Paradyne.
"No!" exclaimed Emma, taken by surprise. "Why not?"
"They seem to shun him; they do shun him, there's no doubt of it. It is making me miserable: I could not sleep all last night for thinking of it. There's scarcely a boy will speak to him, or treat him as a companion;—my dear son, who is so bright and good."
Amidst a mass of confused ideas, two in particular loomed out dimly in Emma Brabazon's mind—that Mrs. Paradyne was rather absorbed in self, and that her son was to her a very idol.
"Can those boys have betrayed him?" she involuntarily exclaimed.
"Betrayed what?" questioned Mrs. Paradyne.
And Emma Brabazon blushed to the very roots of her hair. She had been prepared to offer every kind and considerate sympathy if Mrs. Paradyne herself alluded to the past, but certainly had not intended gratuitously to enter upon it. There was no help for it now; and she spoke a few words of the discovery made by Trace—that he had recognised George Paradyne to be the son of a gentleman who had injured his father.
"Yes," said Mrs. Paradyne, folding her delicate hands in meek resignation on her lap, "I was sure something disagreeable would ensue as soon as George came home and told me that the sons of Loftus and Trace—as the firm used to be—were at the college. It is most unfortunate that he should happen to have come to the same."
"Yes, it is—for your son's sake," murmured Emma, who felt almost guilty herself.
"I expected nothing less, I assure you, Miss Brabazon, than to find my son come home with a note from the Head Master, dismissing him from the college. I——"