He had apparently finished his home-lessons.  The books were pushed aside, and he was sketching in lead-pencil on a drawing-block.  To the right of the fireplace, over the sofa, there hung an engraving after Landseer, showing a lonely stag paddling into a lake.  The stag at eve had drunk or was about to drink his fill, and Cyril was copying him.  He had already indicated a flight of birds in the middle distance; vague birds on the wing being easier than detailed stags, he had begun with the birds.

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.