Читать книгу The Boy in the Bush онлайн

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"Let the poor boy rest," said Aunt Matilda. "Just landed after a six thousand mile voyage, and you rush him out next minute to a concert. Let him stop at home quietly with me, and have a quiet chat about the dear ones he's left behind.—Aren't you going to the concert with the girls, Jacob?"

This was addressed to Mr. Ellis, who took a gulp of tea and shook his head mutely.

"I'd rather go to the concert, I think," said Jack under the queer yellow glower of Monica's eyes, and the full black moons of Mary's.

"Good for you, my boy," said Mr. George. "Bow by name and Bow by nature. And well set up, with three strings to his Bow already."

Monica once more peered tawnily, and Mary glanced a black, furtive glance. Aunt Matilda looked down on him and Grace, at his side, peered up.

For the first time since childhood, Jack found himself in a really female setting. Instinctively he avoided women: but particularly he avoided girls. With girls and women he felt exposed to some sort of danger—as if something were going to seize him by the neck, from behind, when he wasn't looking. He relied on men for safety. But curiously enough, these two elderly men gave him no shelter whatever. They seemed to throw him a victim to these frightful "lambs." In England, there was an esprit de corps among men. Man for man was a tower of strength against the females. Here in this place men deserted one another as soon as the women put in an appearance. They left the field entirely to the females.