‘Not for you. But let me alone; if I like it, that’s enough, Flo.’
‘Oh, Jim, mamma is so pleased when you come in early,’ cried Florence, pleading; ‘it does us all so much good. If you only saw the difference in poor papa’s face when he knows you’re in the drawing-room.’
‘I shouldn’t be in the drawing-room in any case. I’ve got my Greek to do.’
‘Still better if you are at your Greek. Oh, Jim, do for once come home with me!’
‘I’ll come in in half an hour—will that satisfy you? I only want to shake myself up a bit after sitting there with nothing to do.’
‘Well, mind you don’t forget: in half an hour,’ said Florence.
He went off waving his hand to her. Then thrusting his hands into his pockets, with that idle lounging step of the man who is ready for any mischief, but has none immediately in sight, he strolled away. Florence stood looking after him, with anxiety in every line of her face, until she remembered Mab looking on, whom it was necessary to keep from knowing if possible: and then the poor girl laughed. ‘Isn’t he lazy?’ she said; ‘and it does vex papa so. Papa thinks Jim should like Sophocles as much as he does, which is nonsense, isn’t it? But Jim says that old people never can understand young ones, and perhaps it’s true.’
‘Mother always understands me,’ said Mab, with a child’s unhesitating confidence.
‘Oh,’ said Florence. Her secret thought was, ‘What is there in you, you little thing, to understand?’ She said after a moment, ‘Boys are so different!’ with a sigh.
‘You should not nag at him so much,’ said Mab, with a reflection of her mother’s sentiments, who as yet knew little of Jim’s case, and gave her opinion privately in the bosom of her own home that the boy was being driven out of his senses by never being left alone.