Michael

might almost have detecteda certain cordiality in his desire to learn as much as possible of thisgratifying occurrence.

  "And you mean to go to Berlin?" he asked.

  "I'm afraid I shan't be able to," said Michael; "my master is inLondon."

  "I should be inclined to reconsider that, Michael," said the father."The Emperor knows what he is talking about on the subject of music."

  Lady Ashbridge looked up from the breakfast she was giving Petsy II.His dietary was rather less rich than that of the defunct, and she wasafraid sometimes that his food was not nourishing enough.

  "I remember the concert we had here," she said. "We had the 'Song toAegir' twice."

  Lord Ashbridge gave her a quick glance. Michael felt he would not havenoticed it the evening before.

  "Your memory is very good, my dear," he said with encouragement.

  "And then we had a torchlight procession," she remarked.

  "Quite so. You remember it perfectly. And about his visit here, Michael.Did he talk about that?"

  "Yes, very warmly; also about our international relations."

  Lord Ashbridge gave a little giggle.

  "I must tell Barbara that," he said. "She has become a sort ofCassandra, since she became a diplomatist, and sits on her tripod andprophesies woe."

  "She asked me about it," said Michael. "I don't think she believes inhis sincerity."

  He giggled again.

  "That's because I didn't ask her down for his visit," he said.

  He rose.

  "And what are you going to do, my dear?" he said to his wife.

  She looked across to Michael.

  "Perhaps Michael will come for a stroll with me," she said.

  "No doubt he will. I shall have a round of golf, I think, on this finemorning. I should like to have a word with you, Michael, when you'vefinished your breakfast."

  The moment he had gone her whole manner changed: it was suffused withthe glow that had lit her last night.

  "And we shall have another talk, dear?" she said. "It was tiresome beinginterrupted last night. But your father was better pleased with you thismorning."

  Michael's understanding of the situation grew clearer. Whatever was thechange in his mother, whatever, perhaps, it portended, it was certainlyaccompanied by two symptoms, the one the late dawning of mother-love forhimself, the other a certain fear of her husband; for all her marriedlife she had been completely dominated by him, and had lived but in atwilight of her own; now into that twilight was beginning to steala dread of him. His pleasure or his vexation had begun to affect heremotionally, instead of being as before, merely recorded in her mind,as she might have recorded an object quite exterior to herself, and seenout of the window. Now it was in the room with her. Even as Michaelleft her to speak with him, the consciousness of him rose again in her,making her face anxious.

  "And you'll try not to vex him, won't you?" she said.

  His father was in the smoking-room, standing enormously in front of thefire, and for the first time the sense of his colossal fatuity struckMichael.

  "There are several things I want to tell you about," he said. "Yourcareer, first of all. I take it that you have no intention of deferringto my wishes on the subject."

  "No, father, I am afraid not," said Michael.

  "I want you to understand, then, that, though I shall not speak toyou again about it, my wishes are no less strong than they were. It issomething to me to know that a man whom I respect so much as the Emperordoesn't feel as I do about it, but that doesn't alter my view."

  "I understand," said Michael.

  "The next is about your mother," he said. "Do you notice any change inher?"

  "Yes," said Michael.

  "Can you describe it at all?"

  Michael hesitated.

  "She shows quite a new affection for myself," he said. "She came andtalked to me last night in a way she had never done before."

  The irritation which Michael's mere presence produced on his fatherwas beginning to make itself felt. The fact that Michael was squat andlong-armed and ugly had always a side-blow to deal at Lord Ashbridgein the reminder that he was his father. He tried to disregard this--hetried to bring his mind into an impartial attitude, without seeing fora moment the bitter irony of considering impartiality the idealquality when dealing with his son. He tried to be fair, and Michael wasperfectly conscious of the effort it cost him.

  "I had noticed something of the sort," he said. "Your mother was alwaysasking after you. You have not been writing very regularly, Michael. Weknow little about your life."

  "I have written to my mother every week," said Michael.

  The magical effects of the Emperor's interest were dying out. LordAshbridge became more keenly aware of the disappointment that Michaelwas to him.

  "I have not been so fortunate, then," he said.

  Michael remembered his mother's anxious face, but he could not let thispass.

  "No, sir," he said, "but you never answered any of my letters. I thoughtit quite probable that it displeased you to hear from me."

  "I should have expressed my displeasure if I had felt it," said hisfather with all the pomposity that was natural to him.

  "That had not occurred to me," said Michael. "I am afraid I took yoursilence to mean that my letters didn't interest you."

  He paused a moment, and his rebellion against the whole of his father'sattitude flared up.

  "Besides, I had nothing particular to say," he said. "My life is passedin the pursuit of which you entirely disapprove."

  He felt himself back in boyhood again with this stifling and leadenatmosphere of authority and disapproval to breathe. He knew that Francisin his place would have done somehow differently; he could almosthear Aunt Barbara laughing at the pomposity of the situation that hadsuddenly erected itself monstrously in front of him. The fact that hewas Michael Comber vexed his father--there was no statement of the caseso succinctly true.

  Lord Ashbridge moved away towards the window, turning his backon Michael. Even his back, his homespun Norfolk jacket, his looseknickerbockers, his stalwart calves expressed disapproval; but when hisfather spoke again he realised that he had moved away like that, andobscured his face for a different reason.

  "Have you noticed anything else about your mother?" he asked.

  That made Michael understand.

  "Yes, father," he said. "I daresay I am wrong about it--"

  "Naturally I may not agree with you; but I should like to know what itis."

  "She's afraid of you," said Michael.

  Lord Ashbridge continued looking out of the window a little longer,letting his eyes dwell on his own garden and his own fields, wheretowered the leafless elms and the red roofs of the little town whichhad given him his own name, and continued to give him so satisfactory anincome. There presented itself to his mind his own picture, painted andframed and glazed and hung up by himself, the beneficent nobleman, theconscientious landlord, the essential vertebra of England's backbone. Itwas really impossible to impute blame to such a fine fellow. He turnedround into the room again, braced and refreshed, and saw Michael thus.

  "It is quite true what you say," he said, with a certain pride in hisown impartiality. "She has developed an extraordinary timidity towardsme. I have continually noticed that she is nervous and agitated in mypresence--I am quite unable to account for it. In fact, there is noaccounting for it. But I am thinking of going up to London before long,and making her see some good doctor. A little tonic, I daresay; though Idon't suppose she has taken a dozen doses of medicine in as many years.I expect she will be glad to go up, for she will be near you. The onedelusion--for it is no less than that--is as strange as the other."

  He drew himself up to his full magnificent height.

  "I do not mean that it is not very natural she should be devoted to herson," he said with a tremendous air.

  What he did mean was therefore uncertain, and again he changed thesubject.

  "There is a third thing," he said. "This co
ncerns you. You are of theage when we Combers usually marry. I should wish you to marry, Michael.During this last year your mother has asked half a dozen girls downhere, all of whom she and I consider perfectly suitable, and no doubtyou have met more in London. I should like to know definitely if youhave considered the question, and if you have not, I ask you to setabout it at once."

  Michael was suddenly aware that never for a moment had Sylvia been awayfrom his mind. Even when his mother was talking to him last night Sylviahad sat at the back, in the inmost place, throned and secure. And nowshe stepped forward. Apart from the impossibility of not acknowledgingher, he wished to do