At the lunch-table, the antagonism natural between a hot-blooded impetuous boy and a grandmother such as Mrs. de Tracy became rather painfully apparent. He had already been hauled over the coals for his arrival on Sunday and his indecorous appearance in church after service had begun.
"It does not appear to me that you are at all in need of sick-leave," said Mrs. de Tracy suspiciously.
Carnaby, sensitive for all his robustness, flushed hotly, and then became impertinent. "My pulse is twenty beats too quick still, after quinsy. If you don't believe the doctor, ma'am, it's not my fault."
"Carnaby has committed indiscretions in the way of growing since I last saw him," Lavendar broke in hastily. "At sixteen one may easily outgrow one's strength!"
"Indeed!" said Mrs. de Tracy, frigidly. The situation was saved by the behaviour of the lap-dog, which suddenly burst into a passion of barking and convulsive struggling in Miss Smeardon's arms. His enemy had come, and Carnaby had fifty ways of exasperating his grandmother's favourite, secrets between him and the bewildered dog. Rupert was a Prince Charles of pedigree as unquestioned as his mistress's and an appearance dating back to Vandyke, but Carnaby always addressed him as "Lord Roberts," for reasons of his own. It annoyed his grandmother and it infuriated the dog, who took it for a deadly insult.
"Lord Roberts! Bobs, old man, hi! hi!" Carnaby had but to say the words to make the little dog convulsive. He said them now, and the results seemed likely to be fatal to a dropsical animal so soon after a full meal.
"You'll kill him!" whispered Robinette as they left the dining room.
"I mean to!" was the calm reply. "I'd like to wring old Smeardon's neck too!" but the broad good humour of the rosy face, the twinkling eyes, belied these truculent words. In spite of infinite powers of mischief, there was not an ounce of vindictiveness in Carnaby de Tracy, though there might be other qualities difficult to deal with.
"There's a man to be made there--or to be marred!" said Robinette to herself.
Evenings at Stoke Revel were of a dullness all too deep to be sounded and too closely hedged in by tradition and observance to be evaded or shortened by the boldest visitor. Lavendar and the boy would have prolonged their respite in the smoking room had they dared, but in these later days Lavendar found he wished to be below on guard. The thought of Robinette alone between the two women downstairs made him uneasy. It was as though some bird of bright plumage had strayed into a barnyard to be pecked at by hens. Not but what he realised that this particular bird had a spirit of her own, and plenty of courage, but no man with even a prospective interest in a pretty woman, likes to think of the object of his admiration as thoroughly well able to look after herself. She must needs have a protector, and the heaven-sent one is himself.