James arrived at dinner with his cuffs slightly crooked, submitted to Mrs. Howell’s attention at the door with the patience of long practice, and arranged his cutlery before he sat.
“I played the second piece through,” he told Annabelle. “Without stopping.”
“Both times?”
“Both times. The third bar was better.” He picked up his spoon. “The rhythm held.”
Dominic came in and took his seat, coat still on. He looked at the three place settings—the candles, the laid cutlery, his wine glass already poured—and said nothing about any of it.
“James says the rhythm held today,” Annabelle said.
Dominic looked at the boy. “Both times?”
James glanced at him, a flicker of surprise at the echo of his own word. “Both times.”
“Good.” He reached for his wine. “The rhythm is the discipline. Get that and the rest follows.”
James set his spoon down. “Is that true for everything? Not only music?”
“Most things worth doing,” Dominic said.
After two minutes, his chin came up again. “Uncle Dominic. Do you think Newton knows the bird will come back?”
Dominic reached for his glass. “Cats generally have opinions on that sort of thing.”
“He has been in the same spot in the rose bushes for three days. That is not casual behavior.”
“No,” Dominic agreed. “That’s a commitment.”
“So he knows,” James said.
“Or he believes very firmly that he’s right, which in Newton’s case amounts to the same thing.”
James considered this. “People do that too,” he said. “Believe they’re right even when they can’t be certain.”
“They do,” Dominic said.
James looked at him and found whatever he was looking for. “I think Newton is right,” he said, and returned to his dinner.
It was not remarkable. It was a man and a boy talking about a cat over a bowl of soup, and it had asked nothing difficult of either of them.
Annabelle ate her dinner, noted the evidence quietly, and did not say anything about it to anyone.
Dominic sought her out late that night, when she was busy writing some correspondence for her brother, knocking on her door.
“Come in,” she said.
He opened the door and stopped in the frame. His coat was off, his shirtsleeves down, and his hair had lost whatever order it had held through the evening. He looked at her.
“I wanted to thank you,” he said.
She set the letter aside. “For?”
“For James.” He tilted his chin once, the way he did when he was choosing from several things and discarding what wasn’t needed.
“I like James,” she said. “It isn’t management. It’s what you do when you’re fond of someone.”
“I know.” A beat. “That’s what I’m thanking you for.”
