"Just a bit----" Jill smiled bravely. "But I think she's improving. She's more like herself. If only she'd stay in bed for a month and give it a chance--get really strong before she begins to think of work." Roddy nodded and turned to his task. A silence fell in the bare room, broken by the buzz of a blue-bottle blundering round the chandelier and the sound of water stirred in the glass as the boy washed his paint brushes. "What are you doing, Roddy?" Jill asked lazily. "Oh--a ship. It's _rotten_!" his voice was full of despair. "I can't get the sea--it looks thick and flat--like a blooming table-cloth! Think I shall tear it up..." he paused gloomily, sucking his brush. "No--don't." With a quick movement Jill rose to her feet. She bent over her brother, an arm thrown round his shoulder. "It's jolly good. Really, old boy--the ship, I mean. Though the sea's all wrong," she added honestly. "But there's something I like--most awfully--" her grey eyes narrowed, criticizing. "What?" Roddy lifted a wistful face, with that longing for praise peculiar to the artist, which has nothing to do with vanity but the deeper need for encouragement in the long up-hill fight of creative work. "It's the way the ship's moving before the wind. It's alive, somehow, and one feels the struggle. It isn't just chased along--it's up against the strong tide--and the slap of the waves..." "Of course it is." He smiled. "It's getting the full swell round the headland. The drawing's all right--it's the colour that's wrong. I _do_ want some painting lessons!" "Well, perhaps we'll manage it by-and-bye--next summer holidays. You'd like to go in for Art, wouldn't you, Roddy?" "Yes." The boy's voice was gruff. He felt too deeply for easy speech. Jill looked anxious. Long since she had guessed the secret hope in the schoolboy's heart. But she knew it was not a paying profession and where was the money to come from for it? Her mother--a typical soldier's wife--held a curious contempt for the artist class. She wanted Roddy to go to Sandhurst, if means permitted, with the idea of the Indian Army in the future. How would she take this new departure? "D'you remember," said Roddy suddenly, "that old fellow up at Whitby we used to see painting near the harbour?" "Who took you up with him on the moors, that moonlight night, to the Abbey?--Yes--why?" She sat down, leaning her elbows on the table. "Well--he taught me an awful lot. Not exactly painting, you know, but to use my eyes. I can't explain! Values of light and shade--such as the sea, with its colour merely a question of depth and reflection ... not dyed water! I showed him, at last, some of my sketches and--Jill----" the boy looked up wistfully, struggling with a sudden shyness--"he said ... he thought--well, I'd got it in me." "I _know_ you have." Jill nodded. Into her thoughtful eyes there came a look of strong determination. "And I'll do all I can--you know that, Roddy."