It was not for the double first at Oxford that she gave it. There had

been a moment when it had hurt her to think that he probably accepted a

good deal of luxury in his existence out of his mother's abundant

fortune, but it was gone now. Even as a schoolboy he had guessed whence

at least a part of that wealth really came, and had refused to touch a

penny of it. But Lushington felt as if he were being combed with

red-hot needles from head to foot, and the perspiration stood on his

forehead. It would have filled him with shame to mop it with his

handkerchief and yet he felt that in another moment it would run down.

The awful circumstances of his dream came vividly back to him, and he

could positively hear Margaret telling him that he looked hot, so loud

that the whole house could understand what she said. But at this point

something almost worse happened.

Madame Bonanni's motherly but eagle eye detected the tiny beads on his

brow. With a cry of distress she sprang to her feet and began to wipe

them away with the corner of her napkin that was tied round her neck,

talking all the time.

'My darling!' she cried. 'I always forget that you feel hot when I feel

cold! Angelo, open everything--the windows, the doors! Why do you stand

there like a dressed-up doll in a tailor's window? Don't you see that

he is going to have a fit?' 'Mother, mother! Please don't!' protested the unfortunate Lushington,

who was now as red as a beet.

But Madame Bonanni took the lower end of her napkin by the corners, as

if it had been an apron, and fanned him furiously, though he put up his

hands and cried for mercy.

'He is always too hot,' she said, suddenly desisting and sitting down

again. 'He always was, even when he was a baby.' She was now at work on

a very complicated salad. 'But then,' she went on, speaking between

mouthfuls, 'I used to lay him down in the middle of my big bed, with

nothing on but his little shirt, and he would kick and crow until he

was quite cool.' Again Margaret bit her lip, but this time it was of no use, and after a

conscientious effort to be quiet she broke into irrepressible laughter.

In a moment Lushington laughed too, and presently he felt quite cool

and comfortable again, feeling that after all he had been ridiculous

only when he was a baby.

'We used to call him Tommy,' said Madame Bonanni, putting away her

plate and laying her knife and fork upon it crosswise. 'Poor little

Tommy! How long ago that was! After his father died I changed his name,

you know, and then it seemed as if little Tommy were dead too.' There was visible moisture in the big dark eyes for an instant.

Margaret felt sorry for the strange, contradictory creature, half

child, half genius, and all mother.




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