Michael

good deal of amusement to be extracted from the world."

  "To be sure there is. Isn't that what the world is for? Lunch andamusement, and dinner and amusement. Aunt Bar told me she dined with youthe other night, and had a quantity of amusement as well as an excellentdinner. She hinted--"

  "Oh, Aunt Barbara's always hinting," said Michael.

  "I know. After all, everything that isn't hints is obvious, and sothere's nothing to say about it. Tell me more about the Falbes, Mike.Will they let me go there again, do you think? Was I popular? Don't tellme if I wasn't."

  Michael smiled at this egoism that could not help being charming.

  "Would you care if you weren't?" he asked.

  "Very much. One naturally wants to please delightful people. And I thinkthey are both delightful. Especially the girl; but then she starts withthe tremendous advantage of being--of being a girl. I believe you are inlove with her, Mike, just as I am. It's that which makes you so grumpy.But then you never do fall in love. It's a pity; you miss a lot of jollytrouble."

  Michael felt a sudden overwhelming desire to make Francis stop thismaddening twaddle; also the events of the morning were beginning to takeon an air of reality, and as this grew he felt the need of sympathy ofsome kind. Francis might not be able to give him anything that wasof any use, but it would do no harm to see if his cousin's buoyantunconscious philosophy, which made life so exciting and pleasant a thingto him, would in any way help. Besides, he must stop this light banter,which was like drawing plaster off a sore and unhealed wound.

  "You're quite right," he said. "I am in love with her. Furthermore, Iasked her to marry me this morning."

  This certainly had an effect.

  "Good Lord!" said Francis. "And do you mean to say she refused you?"

  "She didn't accept me," said Michael. "We--we adjourned."

  "But why on earth didn't she take you?" asked Francis.

  All Michael's old sensitiveness, his self-consciousness of hisplainness, his awkwardness, his big hands, his short legs, came back tohim.

  "I should think you could see well enough if you look at me," he said,"without my telling you."

  "Oh, that silly old rot," said Francis cheerfully. "I thought you hadforgotten all about it."

  "I almost had--in fact I quite had until this morning," said Michael."If I had remembered it I shouldn't have asked her."

  He corrected himself.

  "No, I don't think that's true," he said. "I should have asked her,anyhow; but I should have been prepared for her not to take me. As amatter of fact, I wasn't."

  Francis turned sideways to the table, throwing one leg over the other.

  "That's nonsense," he said. "It doesn't matter whether a man's ugly ornot."

  "It doesn't as long as he is not," remarked Michael grimly.

  "It doesn't matter much in any case. We're all ugly compared to girls;and why ever they should consent to marry any of us awful hairy things,smelling of smoke and drink, is more than I can make out; but, as amatter of fact, they do. They don't mind what we look like; what theycare about is whether we want them. Of course, there are exceptions--"

  "You see one," said Michael.

  "No, I don't. Good Lord, you've only asked her once. You've got to makeyourself felt. You're not intending to give up, are you?"

  "I couldn't give up."

  "Well then, just hold on. She likes you, doesn't she?"

  "Certainly," said Michael, without hesitation. "But that's a long wayfrom the other thing."

  "It's on the same road."

  Michael got up.

  "It may be," he said, "but it strikes me it's round the corner. Youcan't even see one from the other."

  "Possibly not. But you never know how near the corner really is. Go forher, Mike, full speed ahead."

  "But how?"

  "Oh, there are hundreds of ways. I'm not sure that one of the best isn'tto keep away for a bit. Even if she doesn't want you just now, whenyou are there, she may get to want you when you aren't. I don't think Ishould go on the mournful Byronic plan if I were you; I don't think itwould suit your style; you're too heavily built to stand leaning againstthe chimney-piece, gazing at her and dishevelling your hair."

  Michael could not help laughing.

  "Oh, for God's sake, don't make a joke of it," he said.

  "Why not? It isn't a tragedy yet. It won't be a tragedy till she marriessomebody else, or definitely says no. And until a thing is proved to betragic, the best way to deal with it is to treat it like a comedywhich is going to end well. It's only the second act now, you see, wheneverything gets into a mess. By the merciful decrees of Providence, yousee, girls on the whole want us as much as we want them. That's whatmakes it all so jolly."

  Michael went down next day to Ashbridge, where Aunt Barbara and Franciswere to follow the day after, and found, after the freedom andinterests of the last six months, that the pompous formal life was moreintolerable than ever. He was clearly in disgrace still, as was madequite clear to him by his father's icy and awful politeness when itwas necessary to speak to him, and by his utter unconsciousness of hispresence when it was not. This he had expected. Christmas had usheredin a truce in which no guns were discharged, but remained sighted andpointed, ready to fire.

  But though there was no change in his father, his mother seemed toMichael to be curiously altered; her mind, which, as has been alreadynoticed, was usually in a stunned condition, seemed to have awakenedlike a child from its sleep, and to have begun vaguely crying in aninarticulate discomfort. It was true that Petsy was no more, havingsuccumbed to a bilious attack of unusual severity, but a second Petsyhad already taken her place, and Lady Ashbridge sat with him--it was agentleman Petsy this time--in her lap as before, and occasionally sheda tear or two over Petsy II. in memory of Petsy I. But this did not seemto account for the wakening up of her mind and emotions into thisstate of depression and anxiety. It was as if all her life she had beenquietly dozing in the sun, and that the place where she sat had passedinto the shade, and she had awoke cold and shivering from a bitterwind. She had become far more talkative, and though she had by nomeans abandoned her habit of upsetting any conversation by the extremeobviousness of her remarks, she asked many more questions, and, asMichael noticed, often repeated a question to which she had received ananswer only a few minutes before. During dinner Michael constantly foundher looking at him in a shy and eager manner, removing her gaze when shefound it was observed, and when, later, after a silent cigarette withhis father in the smoking-room, during which Lord Ashbridge, with someostentation, studied an Army List, Michael went to his bedroom, he wasutterly astonished, when he gave a "Come in" to a tapping at his door,to see his mother enter. Her maid was standing behind her holding theinevitable Petsy, and she herself hovered hesitatingly in the doorway.

  "I heard you come up, Michael," she said, "and I wondered if it wouldannoy you if I came in to have a little talk with you. But I won't comein if it would annoy you. I only thought I should like a little chatwith you, quietly, secure from interruptions."

  Michael instantly got up from the chair in front of his fire, in whichhe had already begun to see images of Sylvia. This intrusion of hismother's was a thing utterly unprecedented, and somehow he at onceconnected its innovation with the strange manner he had remarkedalready. But there was complete cordiality in his welcome, and hewheeled up a chair for her.

  "But by all means come in, mother," he said. "I was not going to bedyet."

  Lady Ashbridge looked round for her maid.

  "And will Petsy not annoy you if he sits quietly on my knee?" she asked.

  "Of course not."

  Lady Ashbridge took the dog.

  "There, that is nice," she said. "I told them to see you had a good fireon this cold night. Has it been very cold in London?"

  This question had already been asked and answered twice, now for thethird time Michael admitted the severity of the weather.

  "I hope you wrap up well," she said. "I should be sorry if you caughtco
ld, and so, I am sure, your father would be. I wish you could make upyour mind not to vex him any more, but go back into the Guards."

  "I'm afraid that's impossible, mother," he said.

  "Well, if it's impossible there is no use in saying anything more aboutit. But it vexed him very much. He is still vexed with you. I wish hewas not vexed. It is a sad thing when father and son fall out. But youdo wrap up, I hope, in the cold weather?"

  Michael felt a sudden pang of