Clementina, to whom the remark was addressed, walked three or four steps in silence. Then she said:
“Tommy, if I hear you say a thing like that again, I’ll box your ears.”
He stared at her in amazement. He had paid a spontaneous and sincere tribute to the child over whom she had gone crazy. What more could she want? She moved a step in advance, leaving him free to justify himself with Etta, who agreed with him in the proposition that Clementina for the last two days was in a very cranky mood. Very natural, the proposition of the two innocents. How could they divine that the moisture in Clementina’s eyes had nothing whatsoever to do with Sheila’s appreciation of the vocal lamb or her readiness to be carried by Quixtus? How could they divine that, at the possibility of which the cruelty and insolence of youth would have caused them both to shriek with inextinguishable laughter? And how was Tommy, generous-hearted lad that he was, to know that this one unperceptive speech of his sent him hurtling out of the land of Romance down to common earth? Henceforward Tommy, whilst retaining his chamber in Clementina’s heart, was to walk in and out just as he chose. Not the tiniest pang was he again to cause her. But what could Tommy know—what can you or I or any other male thing ever born know of a woman? We walk, good easy men; with confident and careless tread through the familiar garden, and then suddenly terra firma miraculously ceases to exist, and head-over-heels we go down a precipice. How came it that we were unaware of its existence? Mystère! Who could interpret the soul of La Giaconda? Leonardo da Vinci least of all. It is all very well to give a man a vote; he is a transparent animal, and you know the way the dunderhead is going to use it; but the incalculable and pyrotechnic way in which women will use it will make humanity blink. Let us therefore pardon Tommy for staring in amazement at Clementina. He sought refuge in Etta. From Scylla, perhaps, to Charybdis; but for the present, Charybdis sat smiling under her fig-tree, the most innocent and bewitching monster in the world.
Leaving the three children in the compartment, Clementina and Quixtus walked, for the last few moments before the train started, up and down the platform.
“I suppose you’ll soon be coming back to London?” said Clementina.
“I think so,” said he. “Now that the Grand Prix is over Paris is emptying rapidly.”
“Parrot!” thought Clementina, once more confounding the instructress; but she said blandly; “What difference in the world can it make to you whether Paris is empty or not?”
He smiled good-naturedly. “To tell the honest truth, none. Yes. I must be getting home again.”
“Of course there’ll be a certain amount of worry over Hammersley’s affairs,” she said; “but I hope you’ve got something else to do to occupy your mind.”
“I want to settle down to systematic work,” replied Quixtus.