Chapter 8

Lance Pybus resumed his reading, and his uncle walked on towards the French window of the library. He disliked his nephew, because Lance—even as a child—had been a creature of queer aloofness, the kind of boy who watched you and listened to you with a mysteriously grave face, and remained insultingly silent. At least Conrad had felt his nephew’s silence to be an offence. It had given him the feeling of being spied upon, criticised, ridiculed. The boy had never been anything else but a reticent, conceited, embarrass…