* * * * *

Nicky was different.  You could never tell what Michael would take it into his head to think.  You could never tell what Nicky would take it into his head to do.  There was no guile in Michael.  But sometimes there was guile in Nicky.  Frances was always on the look out for Nicky’s guile.

So when Michael remarked that Grannie and the Aunties would be there immediately and Nicky said, “Mummy, I think my ear is going to ache,” her answer was—­“You won’t have to stay more than a minute, darling.”

For Nicky lived in perpetual fear that his Auntie Louie might kiss at him.

Dorothy saw her mother’s profound misapprehension and she hastened to put it right.

“It isn’t Auntie Louie, Mummy.  His ear is really aching.”

And still Frances went on smiling.  She knew, and Nicky knew that, if a little boy could establish the fact of earache, he was absolved from all social and family obligations for as long as his affliction lasted.  He wouldn’t have to stand still and pretend he liked it while he was being kissed at.

Frances kept her mouth shut when she smiled, as if she were trying not to.  It was her upper lip that got the better of her.  The fine, thin edges of it quivered and twitched and curled.  You would have said the very down was sensitive to her thought’s secret and iniquitous play.  Her smile mocked other people’s solemnities, her husband’s solemnity, and the solemnity (no doubt inherited) of her son Michael; it mocked the demureness and the gravity of her face.

She had brought her face close to Nicky’s; and it was as if her mouth had eyes in it to see if there were guile in him.

“Are you a little humbug?” she said.

Nicky loved his mother’s face.  It never got excited or did silly things like other people’s faces.  It never got red and shiny like Auntie Louie’s face, or hot and rough like Auntie Emmeline’s, or wet and mizzly like Auntie Edie’s.  The softness and whiteness and dryness of his mother’s face were delightful to Nicky.  So was her hair.  It was cold, with a funny sort of coldness that made your fingers tingle when you touched it; and it smelt like the taste of Brazil nuts.

Frances saw the likeness of her smile quiver on Nicky’s upper lip.  It broke and became Nicky’s smile that bared his little teeth and curled up the corners of his blue eyes. (His blue eyes and black brown hair were Anthony’s.) It wasn’t reasonable to suppose that Nicky had earache when he could smile like that.

“I’m afraid,” she said, “you’re a little humbug.  Run to the terrace and see if Grannie and the Aunties are coming.”

He ran.  It was half a child’s run and half a full-grown boy’s.

Then Mrs. Anthony addressed her daughter.

“Why did you say his ear’s aching when it isn’t?”

“Because,” said Dorothy, “it is aching.”

She was polite and exquisite and obstinate, like Anthony.