Geoff would not yield to the demoralising influence of this caress. He held himself away from her, swaying backwards, resisting the pressure of her arm. His eyelids grew bigger and bigger, his mouth twitched and quivered. "Oh, it is not that," he said, with a quiver in his voice, "if mamma likes it. I am only little, I am rather backward, I am not--company enough for mamma." "That must be one of the things that the servants say. You must not listen, Geoff, to what the servants say." "But it is quite true. Mamma knows just exactly what is best. I used to be the one that was always with her--and now it is Warrender. He can talk of lots of things--things I don't understand. For I tell you I am very backward, I don't know half, nor so much as half, what some boys do at my age." "That is a pity, perhaps; but it does not matter, Geoff, to your--to the people who are fond of you, my dear." "Oh yes, it does," cried the boy; "don't hold me, please! I am a little beast, I am not grateful to people nor anything! the best thing for me will just be to be sent to school." Here Geoff turned his back upon her abruptly, forced thereto by the necessity of getting rid of those tears. When he had thus relieved himself, and cleared his throat of the climbing sorrow that threatened to shake his voice, he came back and stood once more by her table. The great effort of swallowing down all that emotion had made him pale, and left the strained look which the passage of a sudden storm leaves both upon the human countenance and the sky. "They say it's very jolly at Eton," he resumed suddenly, taking up with his hot little nervous fingers Mrs. Warrender's piece of work.