Curs’d from the cradle and awry they come,
Masking their torment from a world at ease;
On eyes of dark entreaty, vague and dumb,
They bear the stigma of their souls’ disease.
Bewildered by the shadowy ban of birth
They learn that they are not as others are,
Till some go mad, and some sink prone to earth,
And some push stumbling on without a star.
“It made me think of Ces, you know,” she repeated.
He closed the book.
“He’s been different, from the time he was a tiny child. I’ve always
known it, really, though he was the loveliest little boy and good, too.
You do remember what a dear little boy he was when he first came here?”
she entreated.
“Yes, I do,” said the doctor stoutly. “And we’ve that foundation to
work upon, and the fact that the boy loves you. _Your_ son is not going
to ‘push on without a star,’ Rose.”
“That’s the very phrase that haunts me,” she half whispered.
“We’ll exorcise it, between us. Let him come down to us often, won’t
you?”
“Indeed, I will. He’ll be only too glad. He doesn’t much like being
here, this time. You saw how Ford behaved to him?”
“I did.”
“I could wring his beastly neck,” said Mrs. Aviolet violently.
“Will you forgive me if I tell you that you make that desire a great
deal too evident? I’ve known Ford Aviolet for years, and I know him for
a bully. Every time he sees that he’s hurt you, and angered you, it
gives him a sense of power. And so he’ll go on doing it.”
“He can only touch me through Cecil.”
“He knows that well enough.”
“Why on earth haven’t he and Diana got any children? It’s absurd of
them,” declared Rose with vehemence.
“I suppose it’s a disappointment to everyone.”
“Of course it is! They don’t want Cecil to have Squires, and I’m sure
I don’t want him to have it. But he’ll have to, if Diana can’t pull
herself together.”
Rose had spoken with her usual energy, and Mrs. Ford Aviolet, entering
at the moment, said pleasantly:
“What’s that about me?”
“That I must say good-bye to you,” the doctor declared promptly. “I
ought to go and see quite a number of patients. Thank you for a very
pleasant respite.”
“Oh, must you go? Rose, Cousin Catherine sent me to find you. It’s
about plans for to-morrow. She wants to know something, I’m not sure
what.”
“All right,” said Rose. She picked up her book, and gave her hand to
Dr. Lucian.
Almost involuntarily, he wrung it hard in his--that big, broad hand of
hers, that was yet always soft and warm--but she did not wince.
“Good-bye. Give my love to Henrietta.”
She went away, and Lucian was preparing to go when Diana said suddenly:
“There was just one thing--if you can spare a moment.”
“Certainly,” said the doctor, much surprised.
Diana’s perennial smile seemed a little uncertain, wavering as though
she were nervous, but she courageously kept it on her lips.
“It’s about my sister-in-law, Rose. I know Miss Lucian is a friend of
hers--and you, too, of course. And I wondered if perhaps she’d been
talking to you about Cecil.”
She paused, but Lucian felt no inclination to help her out. He remained
unsympathetically silent.
“I do so wish that we could get her to take it more lightly.”
“It?”
“Cecil--everything to do with Cecil. I’m really awfully fond of Rose,
Dr. Lucian, and it quite worries me to see her upsetting herself like
this. Of course I know she _is_ upset, any one could see it. The
very way she looks at Cecil--it’s enough to make the boy hopelessly
self-conscious. I daresay you noticed at lunch. Ford chaffs him the
least little bit in the world, and Rose either loses her temper, or
looks as though she were going to cry. It’s really wonderful that Cecil
isn’t a great deal more of a spoilt child than he is.”
“Do you think that you understand Cecil, Mrs. Aviolet?”
“Is there much to understand in a boy of that age?”
“You think there isn’t?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Diana was obviously uneasy at the turn taken by
the conversation. “I suppose a boy of Cecil’s age can’t be very
interesting, except to his mother, but at the same time----”
“I can assure you that I find Cecil very interesting indeed, quite
apart from his connection with Squires. From a psychological point of
view, you know, Cecil is rather--unique.”
“Oh, medically! Do you mean that sort of thing?”
Lucian smiled at the clumsy idiom.
“Cecil can hardly be described as the normal schoolboy, I’m afraid.”
“Don’t you think so?” She seemed vaguely surprised. “I must say I’ve
always thought him fairly ordinary. Quite a nice boy, of course, and
school has improved him a great deal. Ford always said it would.”
“Yes. It’s supposed to improve all boys, isn’t it?”
She looked more surprised than ever.
“Don’t you think it does?”
“Oh, I daresay. I’ve uttered platitudes on the subject, like everyone
else. But I think Cecil’s mother was in the right of it, years ago,
when she said that a thing might be good for ninety-nine people and all
wrong for the hundredth.”
“That old nonsense! I beg your pardon, Dr. Lucian, but I thought even
Rose had forgotten the fuss about Cecil going to school by this time.
Why, Hurst made a different child of him.”
“I daresay.”
“Even his mother saw that.”
“It cured him of telling lies?”
Diana looked rather shocked. “Oh, poor little fellow! One would rather
forget that he ever did such a thing.”
“The soul never forgets,” said the doctor brusquely.
“These things can be transmuted, or they can be suppressed--but they
don’t vanish into nothingness because we all agree that it’s more
charitable, or more polite, to forget about them. However, please
forgive me. It’s a hobby-horse of mine, and I can’t resist a canter
every now and then.”
Diana’s little civil laugh assured him, if he had needed any such
assurance, that his energetic diatribe had conveyed to her the minimum
of significance possible.
“I mustn’t keep you any longer. But do, if possible, try and get Rose
to take the whole question of Cecil less seriously. He’s really quite
all right in every possible way, if she’d only believe it, poor dear!”
The doctor shook hands with Mrs. Aviolet. “But I’m afraid,” he observed
in valediction, “that I can’t do as you ask. You see, I agree with your
sister-in-law. The question of Cecil, to my mind, demands just exactly
that.”
“What?”
“To be taken seriously,” said the doctor, his voice very grave.