“If poor Tom had fathered a brace of bounders like those,” burst out Galahad, “poor Tom would have kicked himself—that’s all I know—kicked himself!” he repeated, fuming and climbing out of his hammock.
“Pray don’t be coarse,” entreated Laura—“and abusive,” she added, as an afterthought. “Of course, as poor Tom’s trustee and executor, I am bound to make a show of consulting you, though my mind is really made up, and nobody can prevent my doing what I like with my own income. I shall allow the boys five hundred a year each for pocket money,” she added with a pretty maternal air. “And Dosy shall go into the Diplomatic Service, and Brosy——”
“You have broached the adoption plan to them then?” gasped Galahad. Laura bowed her head. “And this relative with whom I gather they are now staying,” he continued, “is she agreeable to the proposed arrangement?”
“Mrs. Le Bacon Chalmers? She couldn’t prevent it if she wasn’t!” retorted Laura, “as the boys are of age. But, as it happens, she thinks the plan an ideal one.”
“That proves the value of her judgment, certainly. And the County? Will your friends and neighbors also think the plan an ideal one?” demanded Galahad.
“My friends and neighbors,” said Laura, loftily, “will think as I do, or they will cease to be my friends.”
Galahad, usually punctiliously well-mannered, whistled long and dismally. “Phew! And when you have alienated every soul upon your visiting list, what will you do for society?”
“I shall have the boys,” said Laura, with defiant tenderness.
“And when the ‘boys,’ as you call them, marry?” insinuated Galahad.
Laura sat up so suddenly that all her cushions rolled out of the hammock. “If this is how you treat me when I turn to you for advice——” she began.