Maria came to his room one afternoon and found him at his self-imposed exercise. She paused on the threshold, before he knew that she was there, and she watched him with a rather sad smile. He was so tremendously strong and vital, and she felt so subdued and weary! It seemed impossible that he should be her child. Yet hers he was.
He ordered himself to sit very straight, and in the pause during which he made sure of having been very attentive, he heard her and turned his head. He laughed a little shyly at being caught.
‘It’s not play,’ he hastened to say. ‘It’s practice. I go over everything papa tells me, and I do it very carefully. Then he says I learn very fast, but he doesn’t know I practise. Of course, if he asked me, I’d tell him. It’s not wrong not to tell him, if he doesn’t ask me, is it, mama?’
‘No, dear,’ Maria answered, and she bent down and kissed the boy’s forehead.
‘Because I like to surprise him by doing it better than he expects,’ he went on. ‘Then he smiles, and I like him when he smiles.’
‘I think you always like him, my dear,’ said his mother. ‘Don’t you?’
‘Yes. But I wasn’t going to, though!’ The young jaw thrust itself forward viciously. ‘I thought I was going to hate him when he came in here with you that day. I did!’
‘You must try not to hate any one,’ said Maria; and again she kissed his forehead.
‘Oh, that’s all very well, mama!’ retorted the boy. ‘Why do you always kiss my forehead now?’ he asked suddenly. ‘It used to be the back of my neck, you know, just here!’
He laughed, and put up his hand behind his head to the spot where the short hair was always trying to curl. But Maria had turned away to inspect his tooth-brush, as she often did after she had discovered the use he had made of one for cleaning his toy gun. She did not answer his question.