"She cried because she didn't like the food. I don't remember her ever crying for her mother. She fell in love with Leslie the first night-she was just a baby, you know-and I think her interest in him blotted out any grief she might have felt. And he, being four years older, was just the right age to feel protective. He still does-that is why we are in this mess today."
"How did this Ack-Emma affair happen? I know it was your son who went to the paper, but did you eventually come round to his—"
"Good heavens, no," Mrs. Wynn said indignantly. "It was all over before we could do anything about it. My husband and I were out when Leslie and the reporter came-they sent a man back with him when they heard his story, to get it first-hand from Betty-and when—"
"And Betty gave it quite willingly?"
"I don't know how willingly. I wasn't there. My husband and I knew nothing about it until this morning, when Leslie laid an Ack-Emma under our noses. A little defiantly, I may add. He is not feeling too good about it now that it is done. The Ack-Emma, I should like to assure you, Mr. Blair, is not normally my son's choice. If he had not been worked-up—"
"I know. I know exactly how it happened. And that tell-us-your-troubles-and-we'll-see-right-done is very insidious stuff." He rose. "You have been very kind indeed, Mrs. Wynn, and I am exceedingly grateful to you."
His tone was evidently more heartfelt than she had expected and she looked doubtfully at him. What have I said to help you? she seemed to be asking, half-dismayed.
He asked where Betty's parents had lived in London, and she told him. "There is nothing there now," she added. "Just the open space. It is to be part of some new building scheme, so they have done nothing to it so far."
On the doorstep he ran into Leslie.
Leslie was an extraordinarily good-looking young man who seemed to be entirely unaware of the fact-a trait that endeared him to Robert, who was in no mood to look kindly on him. Robert had pictured him as the bull-in-a-china-shop type; but on the contrary he was a rather delicate, kind-looking boy with shy earnest eyes and untidy soft hair. He glared at Robert with frank enmity when his mother presented him and had explained his business there; but, as his mother had said, there was a shade of defiance in the glare; Leslie was obviously not very happy with his own conscience this evening.