“Yes, I do,” he muttered petulantly. “I won’t stay with this new woman! I do want to go away!”
The lines of pain on Horace’s face deepened. His heart seemed to contract as he looked at the golden curls on the pillow, and remembered those long golden curls he had played with and kissed. For a moment he turned away, regretful, sick, and undesirous as the child himself of “this new woman.” Then his manhood reasserted itself, and he remembered that this was after all only a childish fit of ignorant tears.
He was not angry with the child; it did not occur to him to ask him who had given him this cruel fear of Edith. There were a good many things that never occurred to Horace Lestrange. They might have been convenient things to do; possibly they might have made life easy and happy for him, only he did not do them, that was all; he could not make the child tell tales.
There was some one to be very angry with; that was a simplification. It might be Etta, but Lestrange was slow to think so. Hadn’t she congratulated him at once? And besides, he couldn’t think that Etta could poison a child’s mind. Perhaps it was that fool Flinders; he seemed a perfectly incompetent chap, and he might possibly have some sentimental theories on step-mothers. Anyhow, he would go downstairs and talk to Etta; meanwhile he stooped over the child and shook his shoulder gently.
“Don’t cry, old man,” he said quietly. “I promise you, you will like this new friend. She doesn’t want to take your mother’s place, or anything; she is just a new friend. To-morrow you shall see her, and tell me what you feel. You needn’t go to the Zoo. Aunt Etta isn’t going away at present, and you shall see her whenever you like.”
“Mr. Flinders said there was going to be great changes,” sobbed the boy.
The father closed his lips suddenly; there was going to be one great change--and that would be Mr. Flinders. He recalled his sister’s glance at dinner; evidently Etta thought the man a fool too. He felt vaguely relieved to have found out that it was Flinders.
III
Etta was sitting in the library doing church embroidery on a frame; it was a thing she did extremely well; in fact, she was a woman who never did anything badly; if there were possibilities of ignorance in her, she avoided those fields in which they might be betrayed. Horace did not want to talk to her while she worked; he was never quite sure that he had her whole attention; she might be counting stitches or planning patterns, and so miss his points. He knew, however, that it does not do to start an important conversation with a woman by establishing a grievance, so he did not ask her to stop; he merely found refuge in a succession of cigarettes.
“Was it a surprise to you, Etta,” he began in an off-hand tone, “to hear of my engagement?”