"Don't do that," interposed Benja, who had been watching all the time. "You'll spoil it. Give it back to me."
"No," said Master George, very positively.
"Give it back to me, I tell you, Georgy."
"Give him back his watch, Georgy, my dearest," interrupted Mrs. St. John. "Let him keep it to himself if he is so selfish."
Benja, child though he was, felt a sense of injustice. But the reproach told, and he made no further remonstrance. There was ever a certain timidity in his heart when in the presence of Mrs. St. John. So George thought he could go as far as he pleased with impunity, and his next movement was to take firm hold of the short gold chain and swing the watch round and round after the manner of a rattle.
"Oh, mamma, mamma!" cried Benja, in an agony, running up to Mrs. St. John and laying his hands upon her knee, to attract her attention, "do not let him spoil my watch. See what he is doing with it!"
Mrs. St. John's usual self-control deserted her. That self-control, I mean, which enabled her to treat Benja and George with equal justice. Whether the morning's doings, the ovations to Benja, were really exciting her more than she could bear, or whether--but let that pass for the present. However it might be, she tacitly refused to interfere, and pushed Benja from her with a gesture of dislike. The boy, finding he could get no redress where it ought to have been afforded, ran back to Georgy and seized him just as he was flying to his mother for protection. The naughty, spoiled child, finding he might no longer retain possession of the watch, dashed it into a far corner, and they heard its glass crash on the floor, beyond the turkey carpet.
Benja was by nature a sweet-tempered child: he had also been kept under by Mrs. St. John; but this was more than he could bear. He burst into a loud fit of weeping, and struck out at Georgy with all his might and main. Georgy roared, screamed, kicked, and tried to bite.
As a tigress flies to protect its young, up rose Mrs. St. John, her voice loud, her eyes wearing that strangely wild look at times observable there. A passion, mad and fierce as that you once saw her in, in the presence of her husband, overpowered her now. As she had hurled Benja to the ground that ever-to-be-remembered day, so she would have hurled him this; but the boy was older and stronger now, and he struggled against it. Better that he had yielded! It might in a degree have appeased the mad woman who was upon him: and his strength was as nothing compared with hers. His little head was struck against the table, his costly new birthday-dress was torn. He screamed with pain, Georgy screamed with terror, and Honour, who happened to be near the door at the time, came rushing in.
"Good Heavens!" she exclaimed, "what is it? What has he done?"