Outside the door I paused. Laurence Brown's voice could be heard, slightly damped, from inside.
I think Josephine's habit of snooping must have been catching. Quite unashamedly I leaned against the door jamb and listened.
It was a history lesson that was in progress, and the period in question was the French directoire.
As I listened astonishment opened my eyes.
It was a considerable surprise to me to discover that Laurence Brown was a magnificent teacher.
I don't know why it should have surprised me so much.
After all, Aristide Leonides had always been a good picker of men.
For all his mouse-like exterior, Laurence had that supreme gift of being able to arouse enthusiasm and imagination in his pupils.
The drama of Thermidor, the decree of Outlawry against the Robespierrists, the magnificence of Barras, the cunning of Fouche - Napoleon, the half starved young gunner lieutenant - all these were real and living.
Suddenly Laurence stopped, he asked Eustace and Josephine a question, he made them put themselves in the places of first one and then another figure in the drama.
Though he did not get much result from Josephine whose voice sounded as though she had a cold in the head, Eustace sounded quite different from his usual moody self.
He showed brains and intelligence and the keen historical sense which he had doubtless inherited from his father.
Then I heard the chairs being pushed back and scraped across the floor.
I retreated up the steps and was apparently just coming down them when the door opened. Eustace and Josephine came out.
"Hullo," I said.
Eustace looked surprised to see me.
"Do you want anything?" he asked politely.
Josephine, taking no interest in my presence, slipped past me.
"I just wanted to see the schoolroom," I said rather feebly.
"You saw it the other day, didn't you?
It's just a kid's place really.
Used to be the nursery.
It's still got a lot of toys in it."
He held the door open for me and I went in.
Laurence Brown stood by the table. He looked up, flushed, murmured something in answer to my good morning and went hurriedly out.
"You've scared him," said Eustace. "He's very easily scared."
"Do you like him, Eustace?"
"Oh! he's all right.
An awful ass, of course."
"But not a bad teacher?"
"No, as a matter of fact he's quite interesting.
He knows an awful lot. He makes you see things from a different angle.
I never knew that Henry the Eighth wrote poetry - to Anne Boleyn, of course - jolly decent poetry."
We talked for a few moments on such subjects as The Ancient Mariner, Chaucer, the political implications behind the Crusades, the Mediaeval approach to life, and the, to Eustace, surprising fact that Oliver Cromwell had prohibited the celebration of Christmas Day.
Behind Eustace's scornful and rather ill-tempered manner there was, I perceived, an inquiring and able mind.
Very soon I began to realise the source of his ill humour.
His illness had not only been a frightening ordeal, it had also been a frustration and a setback, just at a moment when he had been enjoying life.
"I was to have been in the eleven next term - and I'd got my house colours.
It's pretty thick to have to stop at home and do lessons with a rotten kid like Josephine.
Why, she's only twelve."
"Yes, but you don't have the same studies, do you?"
"No, of course she doesn't do advanced maths - or Latin.
But you don't want to have to share a tutor with a girl."
I tried to soothe his injured male pride by remarking that Josephine was quite an intelligent girl for her age.
"D'you think so?
I think she's awfully wet.
She's mad keen on this detecting stuff - goes round poking her nose in everywhere and writing things down in a little black book and pretending that she's finding out a lot.
Just a silly kid, that's all she is," said Eustace loftily. "Anyway," he added, "girls can't be detectives.
I told her so.
I think mother's quite right and the sooner Jo's packed off to Switzerland the better."