He spoke half-musingly and with a little unconscious irony, and the boy,
vaguely knowing that there was a cross-current somewhere, drifted.

"No, of course not; he can have fun enough without them, can't he?"

Lady Dargan here soothingly broke in, inquiring about Gaston's illness,
and showing a tactful concern. But the nephew persisted:

"I say, Belward, Aunt Sophie was cut up no end when she heard of it. She
wouldn't go out to dinner that night at Lord Dunfolly's, and, of course,
I didn't go. And I wanted to; for Delia Gasgoyne was to be there, and
she's ripping."

Lady Dargan, in spite of herself, blushed, but without confusion, and
Gaston adroitly led the conversation otherwhere. Presently she said that
they were to be at their villa in France during the late summer, and if
he chanced to be abroad would he come? He said that he intended to visit
his uncle in Paris, but that afterwards he would be glad to visit them
for a short time.

She looked astonished. "With your uncle Ian!"

"Yes. He is to show me art-life, and all that."

She looked troubled. He saw that she wished to say something.

"Yes, Lady Dargan?" he asked.

She spoke with fluttering seriousness.