pg5247 [130]
Constance put a hand on his shoulder. "Finished your lessons?" she murmured caressingly.
Before speaking, Cyril gazed up at the picture with a frowning, busy expression, and then replied in an absent-minded voice:
"Yes." And after a pause: "Except my arithmetic. I shall do that in the morning before breakfast."
"Oh, Cyril!" she protested.
It had been a positive ordinance, for a long time past, that there should be no sketching until lessons were done. In his father's lifetime Cyril had never dared to break it.
He bent over his block, feigning an intense absorption. Constance's hand slipped from his shoulder. She wanted to command him formally to resume his lessons. But she could not. She feared an argument; she mistrusted herself. And, moreover, it was so soon after his father's death!
"You know you won't have time to-morrow morning!" she said weakly.
"Oh, mother!" he retorted superiorly. "Don't worry." And then, in a cajoling tone: "I've wanted to do that stag for ages."
She sighed and sat down in her rocking-chair. He went on sketching, rubbing out, and making queer expostulatory noises against his pencil, or against the difficulties needlessly invented by Sir Edwin Landseer. Once he rose and changed the position of the gas-bracket, staring fiercely at the engraving as though it had committed a sin.
Amy came to lay the supper. He did not acknowledge that she existed.
"Now, Master Cyril, after you with that table, if you please!" She announced herself brusquely, with the privilege of an old servant and a woman who would never see thirty again.
"What a nuisance you are, Amy!" he gruffly answered. "Look here, mother, can't Amy lay the cloth on that half of the table? I'm right in the middle of my drawing. There's plenty of room there for two."
He seemed not to be aware that, in the phrase 'plenty of room for two,' he had made a callous reference to their loss. The fact was, there WAS plenty of room for two.
Constance said quickly: "Very well, Amy. For this once."
Amy grunted, but obeyed.
Constance had to summon him twice from art to nourishment. He ate with rapidity, frequently regarding the picture with half-shut, searching eyes. When he had finished, he refilled his glass with water, and put it next to his sketching-block.
"You surely aren't thinking of beginning to paint at this time of night!" Constance exclaimed, astonished.
"Oh YES, mother!" he fretfully appealed. "It's not late."
Another positive ordinance of his father's had been that there should be nothing after supper except bed. Nine o'clock was the latest permissible moment for going to bed. It was now less than a quarter to.
"It only wants twelve minutes to nine," Constance pointed out.
"Well, what if it does?"
"Now, Cyril," she said, "I do hope you are going to be a good boy, and not cause your mother anxiety."
But she said it too kindly.
He said sullenly: "I do think you might let me finish it. I've begun it. It won't take me long."
She made the mistake of leaving the main point. "How can you possibly choose your colours properly by gas-light?" she said.
"I'm going to do it in sepia," he replied in triumph.
"It mustn't occur again," she said.
He thanked God for a good supper, and sprang to the harmonium, where his paint-box was. Amy cleared away. Constance did crochet-work. There was silence. The clock struck nine, and it also struck half-past nine. She warned him repeatedly. At ten minutes to ten she said persuasively:
"Now, Cyril, when the clock strikes ten I shall really put the gas out."
The clock struck ten.
"Half a mo, half a mo!" he cried. "I've done! I've done!"
Her hand was arrested.
Another four minutes elapsed, and then he jumped up. "There you are!" he said proudly, showing her the block. And all his gestures were full of grace and cajolery.
"Yes, it's very good," Constance said, rather indifferently.
"I don't believe you care for it!" he accused her, but with a bright smile.
"I care for your health," she said. "Just look at