The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog Read Online Free PDF

agreed, however, that it was probably a good thing for Nefret to mingle with her contemporaries. The
girl seemed not to mind them. I had not expected she would actively enjoy herself at first. Society takes
a great deal of getting used to.

At last Helen decided the time had come for Nefret to return the visits, and issued a formal invitation for the girl to take tea with her and the selected young "ladies" at the school. She did not invite me. In fact, she flatly refused to allow me to come, adding, in her bluff fashion, that she wanted Nefret to feel at
ease and behave naturally. The implication that my presence prevented Nefret from feeling at ease was of course ridiculous, but I did not— then!— venture to differ with such a well-known authority on
young ladies. I felt all the qualms of any anxious mama when I watched Nefret set off, however, I assured myself that her appearance left nothing to be desired, from the crown of her pretty rose-trimmed hat to the soles of her little slippers. William the coachman was another of her admirers, he had groomed the horses till their coats shone and the buttons of his coat positively blazed in the sunlight.

Nefret returned earlier than I had expected. I was in the library, trying to catch up on a massive accumulation of correspondence, when Ramses entered.

"Well, what is it, Ramses?" I asked irritably. "Can't you see I am busy?"

"Nefret has come back," said Ramses.

"So soon?" I put down my pen and turned to look at him. Hands behind his back, feet apart, he met my gaze with a steady stare. His sable curls were disheveled (they always were), his shirt was stained with dirt and chemicals (it always was). His features, particularly his nose and chin, were still too large for his thin face, but if he continued to fill out as he was doing, those features might in time appear not displeasing— especially his chin, which displayed an embryonic dimple or cleft like the one I found so charming in the corresponding member of his father.

"I hope she had a good time," I went on. "No," said Ramses. "She did not."

The stare was not steady. It was accusing. "Did she say so?"

"SHE would not say so," said my son, who had not entirely overcome his habit of referring to Nefret in capital letters. "SHE would consider complaint a form of cowardice, as well as an expression of disloyalty to you, for whom she feels, quite properly in my opinion— "

"Ramses, I have often requested you to refrain from using that phrase."

"I beg your pardon, Mama. I will endeavor to comply with your request in future. Nefret is in her room, with the door closed, I believe, though I am not in a position to be certain, since she hurried past me with her face averted, that she was crying"

I started to push my chair back from the desk, and then stopped. "Should I go to her, do you think?"

The question astonished me as much as it did Ramses. I had not meant to ask his advice. I never had before. His eyes, of so dark a brown they looked black, opened very wide. "Are you asking me, Mama?"

"So it seems," I replied. "Though I cannot imagine why."

"Were not the situation one of some urgency," said Ramses, "I would express at length my appreciation
of your confidence in me. It pleases and touches me more than I can say."

"I hope so, Ramses. Well? Be succinct, I beg."

Being succinct cost Ramses quite a struggle. It was a token of his concern for Nefret that on this occasion he was able to succeed. "I believe you should go, Mama. At once."

So I did.

I found myself strangely ill at ease when I stood before Nefret's door. Weeping young ladies I had encountered before, and had dealt with them efficiently. Somehow I doubted the methods I had employed in those other cases would work so well here. I stood, one might say, in loco parentis, and that role was not congenial to me. What if she flung herself sobbing onto my lap?

Squaring my shoulders, I knocked at her door. (Children, I feel, are as much entitled to privacy as