“Nothing of the kind,” she ejaculated. “I gave your boy the chance I might have given to any one else; I can’t say I liked him, any more than I like his father; but he’s got a father to look after him, and this lad hasn’t. Besides”—she laughed a little—“your boy will make his way in the world; he’s got the voice and the manner for it; he’ll sail smoothly through things that would upset any one else. Therein he favours his father. No, this is my experiment, and if I can squeeze a little love and tenderness out of this baby for my own sake, and not for the sake of my bank account—well, I sha’n’t quite have failed.”
She got up, still with her hand on the boy’s shoulder, and began to pace up and down that side of the room, firing a shot or two at Mr. Robert Carlaw as she moved.
“You’ve been monstrous kind, Bob, and you’ve pretty well run yourself off those fine legs of yours on my account this morning. I’m much obliged to you, and, just to show you that I’m in a good humour, I’ll pay whatever bills you’ve been incurring on my account. And that reminds me: I suppose, with funeral about to take place, and other matters of that sort, I should be rather in the way here; besides, I want to go to an inn, where I can swear at the waiters if necessary; it relieves the mind wonderfully. So I won’t stop here, after all; I’ll go to the inn.”
“My dear Charlotte, my house, poor though it is, is quite at your disposal.”
“Thanks, I think not. No, my mind is made up, and I shall go to the inn. This boy, with the name I haven’t digested yet, can show me the way. What is the place?”
“I ventured to take rooms for you at The Bell, in the High Street.”
“Good; we shall find it. Good-day to you, brother Bob. Don’t carry any bitter thoughts in your mind about me, because it might destroy your sleep, and I wouldn’t have that happen for the world. Good-day to you!”
There was such a finality about those last words, and she began to pace so resolutely up and down the room, pushing Comethup before her, that Mr. Carlaw, after opening his mouth once or twice, as if to speak, apparently gave up the matter as hopeless, and shrugged his shoulders and went out without a word. After he had passed through the garden and into the street Miss Carlaw, who had stopped in her walk, gave a short laugh and addressed the boy.
“Nice man, that! Ran through one big fortune—married money—ran through pretty well all that, with the exception of a fixed sum which the wife was cute enough to secure for the boy and which is tied up, so that the father can only use so much a quarter. Oh, a nice man! And he hadn’t even the nous to go to the devil decently, whimpered over it, and did it by halves, till the devil must have been pretty well ashamed of his follower. There, we’ll forget all about it. Take me to this inn he mentioned. Is it far?”