“I was going to say he looks as if he had something on his mind.”
Lettice smiled with a sort of contemptuous superiority. “He has something on his mind,” she said, “as every one might understand. He is exceedingly anxious to do more than well at his examination, and he is perhaps working a little too hard.”
Mr Auriol was silent for a moment. When he spoke again he did not seem to be addressing any one in particular.
“I don’t feel satisfied about him,” he said shortly.
Lettice’s face flushed.
“I do not see, Mr Auriol, that you need feel uneasy about him if we do not,” she said. “It is impossible to judge of any one you know so little. Of course, naturally, Arthur is unusually anxious to do well. He knows it would half break my heart if he failed. He knows, what matters far more, that it would have been a most bitter disappointment to my father and mother. It is enough to make him serious.”
Mr Auriol glanced up quickly.
“Were they—were your father and mother so very desirous that he should go into the army?” he said. “I should rather have thought—”
But here he stopped.
“I wish you would say all you mean,” said Lettice curtly.