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_ The next evening Cyril sat at the tea-table in the parlour with
his mother and his aunt. To Constance his presence there had
something of the miraculous in it. He had come, after all! Sophia
was in a rich robe, and for ornament wore an old silver-gilt neck-
chain, which was clasped at the throat, and fell in double to her
waist, where it was caught in her belt. This chain interested
Cyril. He referred to it once or twice, and then he said: "Just
let me have a LOOK at that chain," and put out his hand; and
Sophia leaned forward so that he could handle it. His fingers
played with it thus for some seconds; the picture strikingly
affected Constance. At length he dropped it, and said: "H'm!"
After a pause he said: "Louis Sixteenth, eh?" and Sophia said:
"They told me so. But it's nothing; it only cost thirty francs,
you know." And Cyril took her up sharply:
"What does that matter?" Then after another pause he asked: "How
often do you break a link of it?"
"Oh, often," she said. "It's always getting shorter."
And he murmured mysteriously: "H'm!"
He was still mysterious, withdrawn within himself extraordinarily
uninterested in his physical surroundings. But that evening he
talked more than he usually did. He was benevolent, and showed a
particular benevolence towards his mother, apparently exerting
himself to answer her questions with fullness and heartiness, as
though admitting frankly her right to be curious. He praised the
tea; he seemed to notice what he was eating. He took Spot on his
knee, and gazed in admiration at Fossette.
"By Jove!" he said, "that's a dog, that is! ... All the same. ...
" And he burst out laughing.
"I won't have Fossette laughed at," Sophia warned him.
"No, seriously," he said, in his quality of an amateur of dogs;
"she is very fine." Even then he could not help adding: "What you
can see of her!"
Whereupon Sophia shook her head, deprecating such wit. Sophia was
very lenient towards him. Her leniency could be perceived in her
eyes, which followed his movements all the time. "Do you think he
is like me, Constance?" she asked.
"I wish I was half as good-looking," said Cyril, quickly; and
Constance said:
"As a baby he was very like you. He was a handsome baby. He wasn't
at all like you when he was at school. These last few years he's
begun to be like you again. He's very much changed since he left
school; he was rather heavy and clumsy then."
"Heavy and clumsy!" exclaimed Sophia. "Well, I should never have
believed it!"
"Oh, but he was!" Constance insisted.
"Now, mater," said Cyril, "it's a pity you don't want that cake
cutting into. I think I could have eaten a bit of that cake. But
of course if it's only for show ...!"
Constance sprang up, seizing a knife.
"You shouldn't tease your mother," Sophia told him. "He doesn't
really want any, Constance; he's regularly stuffed himself."
And Cyril agreed, "No, no, mater, don't cut it; I really couldn't.
I was only gassing."
But Constance could never clearly see through humour of that sort.
She cut three slices of cake, and she held the plate towards
Cyril.
"I tell you I really couldn't!" he protested.
"Come!" she said obstinately. "I'm waiting! How much longer must I
hold this plate?"
And he had to take a slice. So had Sophia. When she was roused,
they both of them had to yield to Constance.
With the dogs, and the splendour of the tea-table under the gas,
and the distinction of Sophia and Cyril, and the conversation,
which on the whole was gay and free, rising at times to jolly
garrulity, the scene in her parlour ought surely to have satisfied
Constance utterly. She ought to have been quite happy, as her
sciatica had raised the siege for a space. But she was not quite
happy. The circumstances of Cyril's arrival had disturbed her;
they had in fact wounded her, though she would scarcely admit the
wound. In the morning she had received a brief letter from Cyril
to say that he had not been able to come, and vaguely promising,
or half-promising, to run down at a later date. That letter had
the cardinal defects of all Cyril's relations with his mother; it
was casual, and it was not candid. It gave no hint of the nature
of the obstacle which had prevented him from coming. Cyril had
always been too secretive. She was gravely depressed by the
letter, which she did not show to Sophia, because it impaired her
dignity as a mother, and displayed her son in a bad light. Then
about eleven o'clock a telegram had come for Sophia.
"That's all right," Sophia had said, on reading it. "He'll be here
this evening!" And she had handed over the telegram, which read--
"Very well. Will come same train to-day."
And Constance learned that when Sophia had rushed out just before
tea on the previous evening, it was to telegraph to Cyril.
"What did you say to him?" Constance asked.
"Oh!" said Sophia, with a careless air, "I told him I thought he
ought to come. After all, you're more important than any business,
Constance! And I don't like him behaving like that. I was
determined he should come!"
Sophia had tossed her proud head.
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.
In the drawing-room he smoked cigarettes and played the piano--
waltzes of his own composition. Constance and Sophia did not
entirely comprehend those waltzes. But they agreed that all were
wonderful and that one was very pretty indeed. (It soothed
Constance that Sophia's opinion coincided with hers.) He said that
that waltz was the worst of the lot. When he had finished with the
piano, Constance informed him about Amy. "Oh! She told me," he
said, "when she brought me my water. I didn't mention it because I
thought it would be rather a sore subject." Beneath the casualness
of his tone there lurked a certain curiosity, a willingness to
hear details. He heard them.
At five minutes to ten, when Constance had yawned, he threw a bomb
among them on the hearthrug.
"Well," he said, "I've got an appointment with Matthew at the
Conservative Club at ten o'clock. I must go. Don't wait up for
me."
Both women protested, Sophia the more vivaciously. It was Sophia
now who was wounded.
"It's business," he said, defending himself. "He's going away
early to-morrow, and it's my only chance." And as Constance did
not brighten he went on: "Business has to be attended to. You
mustn't think I've got nothing to do but enjoy myself."
No hint of the nature of the business! He never explained. As to
business, Constance knew only that she allowed him three hundred a
year, and paid his local tailor. The sum had at first seemed to
her enormous, but she had grown accustomed to it.
"I should have preferred you to see Mr. Peel-Swynnerton here,"
said Constance. "You could have had a room to yourselves. I do not
like you going out at ten o'clock at night to a club."
"Well, good night, mater," he said, getting up. "See you to-
morrow. I shall take the key out of the door. It's true my pocket
will never be the same again."
Sophia saw Constance into bed, and provided her with two hot-water
bottles against sciatica. They did not talk much. _
Read next: BOOK IV WHAT LIFE IS: CHAPTER III TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE: PART V
Read previous: BOOK IV WHAT LIFE IS: CHAPTER III TOWARDS HOTEL LIFE: PART III
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