"Only that I haven't got one—at least, mine's in rags; and if I say I need a new one, they'll all be down upon me for extravagance," said Geoff, as sulkily as he dared.
"My dear boy, don't talk in that dreadfully aggrieved tone," said his mother, trying to speak lightly. "You know I have never refused you anything you really require."
Geoffrey did not reply, at least not audibly. But Elsa's quick ears and some other ears besides hers—for it is a curious fact that old people, when they are not deaf, are often peculiarly the reverse—caught his muttered whisper.
"Of course. Always the way if I want anything."
Mr. Byrne did not stay late. He saw that Mrs. Tudor looked tired and depressed, and he did not wish to be alone with her to talk about Geoff, as she probably would have done, for he could not have spoken of the boy as she would have wished to hear.
A few days passed. Great-Uncle Hoot-Toot spent a part of each with the Tudor family, quietly making his observations. Geoff certainly did not show to advantage; and though his mother wore herself out with talking to him and trying to bring him to a more reasonable frame of mind, it was of no use. So at last she took Elsa's advice and left the discontented, tiresome boy to himself, for perhaps the first time in his life.
And every evening, when alone with Victoria, the selfish boy entertained his poor little sister with his projects of running away from a home where he was so little appreciated.
But a change came, and that in a way which Geoffrey little expected.
One evening when Mr. Byrne said "Good night," it struck him that his niece looked particularly tired.
"Make your mother go to bed at once, Elsa," he said, "I don't like her looks. If she's not better to-morrow, I must have a doctor to see her. And," he added in a lower tone still, "don't let Geoffrey go near her to-morrow morning. Has he bothered her much lately?"