“Don’t, Morris. It jars horribly to hear that banging. Your touch is not at all improved.”
“The ‘light trills and runs’ of the eighties are altogether out of keeping with modern music, mother.”
“Dear me, is that what you call modern music, my poor boy? I should simply call it strumming. But I suppose,” said Nina with an annoying laugh, “that you like to call it improvization.”
“Like!” said her son with gloomy scorn, unable to think of a better retort. “I don’t suppose I shall ever like anything again.”
He flung out of the room.
Most of his days might be said to be spent in this exercise, resorted to at ever shortening intervals, until finally the time came when he prefaced it by a definite statement:
“Mother, this is no good. I must go away.”
“Very well, Morris. You know I’m used to being alone.”
“Of course I know it is lonely for you in a way, especially since Mrs. Tregaskis has left Porthlew——”
“Very lonely,” repeated Nina with a patient smile. “But I shall make some music, Morris, and read a good deal in the long evenings, and then there’s the garden....”