Constance had pretended to be pleased and grateful.  But the existence of a wound was incontestable.  Sophia, then, could do more with Cyril than she could!  Sophia had only met him once, and could simply twist him round her little finger.  He would never have done so much for his mother.  A fine sort of an obstacle it must have been, if a single telegram from Sophia could overcome it ...!  And Sophia, too, was secretive.  She had gone out and had telegraphed, and had not breathed a word until she got the reply, sixteen hours later.  She was secretive, and Cyril was secretive.  They resembled one another.  They had taken to one another.  But Sophia was a curious mixture.  When Constance had asked her if she should go to the station again to meet Cyril, she had replied scornfully:  “No, indeed!  I’ve done going to meet Cyril.  People who don’t arrive must not expect to be met.”

When Cyril drove up to the door, Sophia had been in attendance.  She hurried down the steps.  “Don’t say anything about my telegram,” she had rapidly whispered to Cyril; there was no time for further explanation.  Constance was at the top of the steps.  Constance had not heard the whisper, but she had seen it; and she saw a guilty, puzzled look on Cyril’s face, afterwards an ineffectively concealed conspiratorial look on both their faces.  They had ‘something between them,’ from which she, the mother, was shut out!  Was it not natural that she should be wounded?  She was far too proud to mention the telegrams.  And as neither Cyril nor Sophia mentioned them, the circumstances leading to Cyril’s change of plan were not referred to at all, which was very curious.  Then Cyril was more sociable than he had ever been; he was different, under his aunt’s gaze.  Certainly he treated his mother faultlessly.  But Constance said to herself:  “It is because she is here that he is so specially nice to me.”

When tea was finished and they were going upstairs to the drawing-room, she asked him, with her eye on the ‘Stag at Eve’ engraving: 

“Well, is it a success?”

“What?” His eye followed hers.  “Oh, you’ve changed it!  What did you do that for, mater?”

“You said it would be better like that,” she reminded him.

“Did I?” He seemed genuinely surprised.  “I don’t remember.  I believe it is better, though,” he added.  “It might be even better still if you turned it the other way up.”

He pulled a face to Sophia, and screwed up his shoulders, as if to indicate:  “I’ve done it, this time!”

“How?  The other way up?” Constance queried.  Then as she comprehended that he was teasing her, she said:  “Get away with you!” and pretended to box his ears.  “You were fond enough of that picture at one time!” she said ironically.

“Yes, I was, mater,” he submissively agreed.  “There’s no getting over that.”  And he pressed her cheeks between his hands and kissed her.