Then Mr. Byrne left the room, and Geoff went off to school.
He was in a strange state of mind. He hardly took in what he had been told of the state of his mother's money matters. He hardly indeed believed it, so possessed was he by the idea that there was a sort of plot to get rid of him.
"It isn't mother herself," he reflected. "It's all Elsa and Frances, and that horrid old Hoot-Toot. But as for going to any school he'd send me to—no, thank you."
He was standing about at noon with some of his companions, when the coloured servant appeared.
"Please, sir," he said, "I was to tell you that the lady is better—doctor say so;" and with a kind of salaam he waited to see what the young gentleman would reply.
"All right," said Geoff, curtly; and the man turned to go.
Geoff did not see that at the gates he stood still a moment speaking to another man, who appeared to have been waiting for him.
"That young gentleman with the dark hair. You see plain when I speak to him," he said in his rather broken English.
The other man nodded his head.
"I shall know him again, no fear. Tell your master it's all right," he said.