Lady Verny saw that Julian thought that she was jealous. She looked away from him to the terrace where he had fallen as a baby and struck his head against the stone cornice of the sun-dial.
She could never look at the sun-dial without seeing the whole scene happen again—and the dreadful pause that followed it when the small, limp figure lay without moving. Julian was the only child she had ever had. She shivered in the hot summer air and gave up the subject of human love. There is generally too much to be said about it to make it a good subject of conversation except for lovers, who only want each other.
She pointed to the newspaper that lay between them; that also was serious.
"My dear," she said quietly, "this appears to be a very bad business?"
"Yes," Julian acknowledged. "This time there'll be no ducking; there's nothing to duck under."
"And I dare say," said his mother, without moving the strong, quiet hands that lay on her lap, "you have been thinking what you are going to do in it?"
"Oh, yes, I've decided," said Julian. "I shall be off in ten days. You'll guess where, but no one else must know."
"It was a big risk before, Julian," she said tentatively.
"This time it'll be a bigger one," he answered, meeting her eyes with a flash of his pleased blue ones. "That's all. It'll need a jolly lot of thinking out."
"And you've—and Marian has agreed to it?" Lady Verny asked anxiously.