the rest of the family must have felt when all that veal was wasted on the prodigal."
"I think it very good of Aunt Caroline," said Lola, "and I like her."
Fixing his glass in his eye Drewitt gazed at her with interest, as if she had made a most remarkable statement.
"But what about Edward?" queried Beresford.
"Teddy was sublime." A flicker of a smile passed over Drewitt's countenance at the recollection. "He was subjected to what I believe is scripturally deicribed as 'whips of scorpions,' in my opinion an entirely inadequate form of punishment. His little soul was extracted from his body and dangled before his nose. He was held responsible for himself, for Cecily, and by implication for my own shortcomings. He was asked what he had done in the war, and why he hadn't done it. Why he had married, and why he had no children. I pointed out to the Aunt that the morality of the observation was a little loose; but she ignored me.
"He was told that he was depraved and demoralising, although poor Teddy would not demoralise a three-inch lizard. He was held responsible for the German vacillation in connection with the Peace Treaty, and for the shortage of high-explosive shells in 1914. In fact, there was nothing evil the Aunt was able to call to mind that was not either directly or indirectly ascribable to what she gave us to understand was a world-wide catastrophe—the coming of Teddy.
