"He's an odd fellow!"

For some moments Mr. Pendyce made reflections on this breach of manners.
He had a nice standard of conduct in all social affairs.

"I'm having trouble with that man Peacock again. He's the most
pig-headed----What are you in such a hurry for, Margery?"

"George is here!"

"George? Well, I suppose he can wait till dinner. I have a lot of
things I want to tell you about. We had a case of arson to-day. Old
Quarryman was away, and I was in the chair. It was that fellow Woodford
that we convicted for poaching--a very gross case. And this is what he
does when he comes out. They tried to prove insanity. It's the rankest
case of revenge that ever came before me. We committed him, of course.
He'll get a swinging sentence. Of all dreadful crimes, arson is the
most----"

Mr. Pendyce could find no word to characterise his opinion of this
offence, and drawing his breath between his teeth, passed into his
dressing-room. Mrs. Pendyce hastened quietly out, and went to her son's
room. She found George in his shirtsleeves, inserting the links of his
cuffs.

"Let me do that for you, my dear boy! How dreadfully they starch your
cuffs! It is so nice to do something for you sometimes!"

George answered her:

"Well, Mother, and how have you been?"

Over Mrs. Pendyce's face came a look half sorrowful, half arch, but
wholly pathetic. 'What! is it beginning already? Oh, don't put me away
from you!' she seemed to say.

"Very well, thank you, dear. And you?"

George did not meet her eyes.

"So-so," he said. "I took rather a nasty knock over the 'City' last
week."

"Is that a race?" asked Mrs. Pendyce.

And by some secret process she knew that he had hurried out that piece of
bad news to divert her attention from another subject, for George had
never been a "crybaby."

She sat down on the edge of the sofa, and though the gong was about to
sound, incited him to dawdle and stay with her.

"And have you any other news, dear? It seems such an age since we've
seen you. I think I've told you all our budget in my letters. You know
there's going to be another event at the Rectory?"

"Another? I passed Barter on the way up. I thought he looked a bit
blue."

A look of pain shot into Mrs. Pendyce's eyes.

"Oh, I'm afraid that couldn't have been the reason, dear." And she
stopped, but to still her own fears hurried on again. "If I'd known
you'd been coming, I'd have kept Cecil Tharp. Vic