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

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 fire on this cold night. Has it been very cold in London?"

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

"I hope you wrap up well," she said. "I should be sorry if you caught cold, and so, I am sure, your father would be. I wish you could make up your 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 about it. But it vexed him very much. He is still vexed with you. I wish he was not vexed. It is a sad thing when father and son fall out. But you do wrap up, I hope, in the cold weather?"

Michael felt a sudden pang of anxiety and alarm. Each separate thing that his mother said was sensible enough, but in the sum they were nonsense.

"You have been in London since September," she went on. "That is a long time to be in London. Tell me about your life there. Do you work hard? Not too hard, I hope?"

"No! hard enough to keep me busy," he said.

"Tell me about it all. I am afraid I have not been a very good mother to you; I have not entered into your life enough. I want to do so now. But I don't think you ever wanted to confide in me. It is sad when sons don't confide in their mothers. But I daresay it was my fault, and now I know so little about you."

She paused a moment, stroking her dog's ears, which twitched under her touch.

"I hope you are happy, Michael," she said. "I don't think I am so happy as I used to be. But don't tell your father; I feel sure he does not notice it, and it would vex him. But I want you to be happy; you used not to be when you were little; you were always sensitive and queer. But you do seem happier now, and that's a good thing."

Here again this was all sensible, when taken in bits, but its aspect was different when considered together. She looked at Michael anxiously a moment, and then drew her chair closer to him, laying her thin, veined hand, sparkling with many rings, on his knee.

"But it wasn't I who made you happier," she said, "and that's so dreadful. I never made anybody happy. Your father always made himself happy, and he liked being himself, but I suspect you haven't liked being yourself, poor Michael. But now that you're living the life you chose, which vexes your father, is it better with you?"

The shyness had gone from the gaze that he had seen her direct at him at dinner, which fugitively fluttered away when she saw that it was observed, and now that it was bent so unwaveringly on him he saw shining through it what he had never seen before, namely, the mother-love which he had missed all his life. Now, for the first time, he saw it; recognising it, as by divination, when, with ray serene and untroubled, it burst through the mists that seemed to hang about his mother's mind. Before, noticing her change of manner, her restless questions, he had been vaguely alarmed, and as they went on the alarm had become more pronounced; but at this moment, when there shone forth the mother-instinct which had never come out or blossomed in her life, but had been overlaid completely with routine and conventionality, rendering it too indolent to put forth petals, Michael had no thought but for that which she had never given him yet, and which, now it began to expand before him, he knew he had missed all his life.

She took up his big hand that lay on his knee and began timidly stroking it.

"Since you have been away," she said, "and since your father has been vexed with you, I have begun to see how lonely you must have been. What taught me that, I am afraid, was only that I have begun to feel lonely, too. Nobody wants me; even Petsy, when she died, didn't want me to be near her, and then it began to strike me that perhaps you might want me. There was no one else, and who should want me if my son did not? I never gave you the chance before, God forgive me, and now perhaps it is too late. You have learned to do without me."

That was bitterly true; the truth of it stabbed Michael. On his side, as he knew, he had made no effort either, or if he had they had been but childish efforts, easily repulsed. He had not troubled about it, and if she was to blame, the blame was his also. She had been slow to show the mother-instinct, but he had been just as wanting in the tenderness of the son.

He was profoundly touched by this humble timidity, by the sincerity, vague but unquestionable, that lay behind it.

"It's never too late, is it?" he said, bending down and kissing the thin white hands that held his. "We are in time, after all, aren't we?"

She gave a little shiver.

"Oh, don't kiss my hands, Michael," she said. "It hurts me that you should do that. But it is sweet of you to say that I am not too late, after all. Michael, may I just take you in my arms—may I?"

He half rose.

"Oh, mother, how can you ask?" he said.

"Then let me do it. No, my darling, don't move. Just sit still as you are, and let me just get my arms about you, and put my head on your shoulder, and hold me close like that for a moment, so that I can realise that I am not too late."

She got up, and, leaning over him, held him so for a moment, pressing her cheek close to his, and kissing him on the eyes and on the mouth.

"Ah, that is nice," she said. "It makes my loneliness fall away from me. I am not quite alone any more. And now, if you are not tired will you let me talk to you a little more, and learn a little more about you?"

She pulled her chair again nearer him, so that sitting there she could clasp his arm.

"I want your happiness, dear," she said, "but there is so little now that I can do to secure it. I must put that into other hands. You are twenty-five, Michael; you are old enough to get married. All Combers marry when they are twenty-five, don't they? Isn't there some girl you would like to be yours? But you must love her, you know, you must want her, you mustn't be able to do without her. It won't do to marry just because you are twenty-five."

It would no more have entered into Michael's head this morning to tell to his mother about Sylvia than to have discussed counterpoint with her. But then this morning he had not been really aware that he had a mother. But to tell her now was not unthinkable, but inevitable.

"Yes, there is a girl whom I can't do without," he said.

Lady Ashbridge's face lit up.

"Ah, tell me about her—tell me about her," she said. "You want her, you can't do without her; that is the right wife for you."

Michael caught at his mother's hand as it stroked his sleeve.

"But she is not sure that she can do with me," he said.

Her face was not dimmed at this.

"Oh, you may be sure she doesn't know her own mind," she said. "Girls so often don't. You must not be down-hearted about it. Who is she? Tell me about her."

"She's the sister of my great friend, Hermann Falbe," he said, "who teaches me music."

This time the gladness faded from her.

"Oh, my dear, it will vex your father again," she said, "that you should want to marry the sister of a music-teacher. It will never do to vex him again. Is she not a lady?"

Michael laughed.

"But certainly she is," he said. "Her father was German, her mother was a Tracy, just as well-born as you or I."

"How odd, then, that her brother should have taken to giving music lessons. That does not sound good. Perhaps they are poor, and certainly there is no disgrace in being poor. And what is her name?"

"Sylvia," said Michael. "You have probably heard of her; she is the Miss Falbe who made such a sensation in London last season by her singing."

The old outlook, the old traditions were beginning to come to the surface again in poor Lady Ashbridge's mind.

"Oh, my dear!" she said. "A singer! That would vex your father terribly. Fancy the daughter of a Miss Tracy becoming a singer. And yet you want her—that seems to me to matter most of all."

Then came a step at the door; it opened an inch or two, and Michael heard his father's voice.

"Is your mother with you, Michael?" he asked.

At that Lady Ashbridge got up. For one second she clung to her son, and then, disengaging herself, froze up like the sudden congealment of a spring.

"Yes, Robert," she said. "I was having a little talk to Michael."

"May I come in?"

"It's our secret," she whispered to Michael.

"Yes, come in, father," he said.

Lord Ashbridge stood towering in the doorway.

"Come, my dear," he said, not unkindly, "it's time for you to go to bed."

She had become the mask of herself again.

"Yes, Robert," she said. "I suppose it must be late. I will come. Oh, there's Petsy. Will you ring, Michael? then Fedden will come and take him to bed. He sleeps with Fedden."

CHAPTER IX

Michael, in desperate conversational efforts next morning at breakfast, mentioned the fact that the German Emperor had engaged him in a substantial talk at Munich, and had recommended him to pass the winter at Berlin. It was immediately obvious that he rose in his father's estimation, for, though no doubt primarily the fact that Michael was his son was the cause of this interest, it gave Michael a sort of testimonial also to his respectability. If the Emperor had thought that his taking up a musical career was indelibly disgraceful—as Lord Ashbridge himself had done—he would certainly not have made himself so agreeable. On anyone of Lord Ashbridge's essential and deep-rooted snobbishness this could not fail to make a certain effect; his chilly politeness to Michael sensibly thawed; you might almost have detected a certain cordiality in his desire to learn as much as possible of this gratifying occurrence.

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

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

"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 was afraid sometimes that his food was not nourishing enough.

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

Lord Ashbridge gave her a quick glance. Michael felt he would not have noticed 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 of Cassandra, since she became a diplomatist, and sits on her tripod and prophesies woe."

"She asked me about it," said Michael. "I don't think she believes in his 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 fine morning. I should like to have a word with you, Michael, when you've finished your breakfast."

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

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

Michael's understanding of the situation grew clearer. Whatever was the change in his mother, whatever, perhaps, it portended, it was certainly accompanied by two symptoms, the one the late dawning of mother-love for himself, the other a certain fear of her husband; for all her married life she had been completely dominated by him, and had lived but in a twilight of her own; now into that twilight was beginning to steal a dread of him. His pleasure or his vexation had begun to affect her emotionally, instead of being as before, merely recorded in her mind, as she might have recorded an object quite exterior to herself, and seen out of the window. Now it was in the room with her. Even as Michael left 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 the fire, and for the first time the sense of his colossal fatuity struck Michael.

"There are several things I want to tell you about," he said. "Your career, first of all. I take it that you have no intention of deferring to 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 to you again about it, my wishes are no less strong than they were. It is something to me to know that a man whom I respect so much as the Emperor doesn'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 in her?"

"Yes," said Michael.

"Can you describe it at all?"

Michael hesitated.

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

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

"I had noticed something of the sort," he said. "Your mother was always asking after you. You have not been writing very regularly, Michael. We know 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. Lord Ashbridge became more keenly aware of the disappointment that Michael was to him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He felt himself back in boyhood again with this stifling and leaden atmosphere of authority and disapproval to breathe. He knew that Francis in his place would have done somehow differently; he could almost hear Aunt Barbara laughing at the pomposity of the situation that had suddenly erected itself monstrously in front of him. The fact that he was Michael Comber vexed his father—there was no statement of the case so succinctly true.

Lord Ashbridge moved away towards the window, turning his back on Michael. Even his back, his homespun Norfolk jacket, his loose knickerbockers, his stalwart calves expressed disapproval; but when his father spoke again he realised that he had moved away like that, and obscured 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 it is."

"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, where towered the leafless elms and the red roofs of the little town which had given him his own name, and continued to give him so satisfactory an income. There presented itself to his mind his own picture, painted and framed and glazed and hung up by himself, the beneficent nobleman, the conscientious landlord, the essential vertebra of England's backbone. It was really impossible to impute blame to such a fine fellow. He turned round 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 his own impartiality. "She has developed an extraordinary timidity towards me. I have continually noticed that she is nervous and agitated in my presence—I am quite unable to account for it. In fact, there is no accounting 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 I don'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 one delusion—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 her son," he said with a tremendous air.

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

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

Michael was suddenly aware that never for a moment had Sylvia been away from his mind. Even when his mother was talking to him last night Sylvia had sat at the back, in the inmost place, throned and secure. And now she stepped forward. Apart from the impossibility of not acknowledging her, he wished to do it. He wanted to wear her publicly, though she was not his; he wanted to take his allegiance oath, though his sovereign heeded not.

"I have considered the question," he said, "and I have quite made up my mind whom I want to marry. She is Miss Falbe, Miss Sylvia Falbe, of whom you may have heard as a singer. She is the sister of my music-master, and I can certainly marry nobody else."

It was not merely defiance of the dreadful old tradition, which Lord Ashbridge had announced in the manner of Moses stepping down from Sinai, that prompted this appalling statement of the case; it was the joy in the profession of his love. It had to be flung out like that. Lord Ashbridge looked at him a moment in dead silence.

"I have not the honour of knowing Miss—Miss Falbe, is it?" he said; "nor shall I have that honour."

Michael got up; there was that in his father's tone that stung him to fury.

"It is very likely that you will not," he said, "since when I proposed to her yesterday she did not accept me."

Somehow Lord Ashbridge felt that as an insult to himself. Indeed, it was a double insult. Michael had proposed to this singer, and this singer had not instantly clutched him. He gave his dreadful little treble giggle.

"And I am to bind up your broken heart?" he asked.

Michael drew himself up to his full height. This was an indiscretion, for it but made his father recognise how short he was. It brought farce into the tragic situation.

"Oh, by no means," he said. "My heart is not going to break yet. I don't give up hope."

Then, in a flash, he thought of his mother's pale, anxious face, her desire that he should not vex his father.

"I am sorry," he said, "but that is the case. I wish—I wish you would try to understand me."

"I find you incomprehensible," said Lord Ashbridge, and left the room with his high walk and his swinging elbows.

Well, it was done now, and Michael felt that there were no new vexations to be sprung on his father. It was bound to happen, he supposed, sooner or later, and he was not sorry that it had happened sooner than he expected or intended. Sylvia so held sway in him that he could not help acknowledging her. His announcement had broken from him irresistibly, in spite of his mother's whispered word to him last night, "This is our secret." It could not be secret when his father spoke like that. . . . And then, with a flare of illumination he perceived how intensely his father disliked him. Nothing but sheer basic antipathy could have been responsible for that miserable retort, "Am I to bind up your broken heart?" Anger, no doubt, was the immediate cause, but so utterly ungenerous a rejoinder to Michael's announcement could not have been conceived, except in a heart that thoroughly and rootedly disliked him. That he was a continual monument of disappointment to his father he knew well, but never before had it been quite plainly shown him how essential an object of dislike he was. And the grounds of the dislike were now equally plain—his father disliked him exactly because he was his father. On the other hand, the last twenty-four hours had shown him that his mother loved him exactly because he was her son. When these two new and undeniable facts were put side by side, Michael felt that he was an infinite gainer.

He went rather drearily to the window. Far off across the field below the garden he could see Lord Ashbridge walking airily along on his way to the links, with his head held high, his stick swinging in his hand, his two retrievers at his heels. No doubt already the soothing influences of Nature were at work—Nature, of course, standing for the portion of trees and earth and houses that belonged to him—and were expunging the depressing reflection that his wife and only son inspired in him. And, indeed, such was actually the case: Lord Ashbridge, in his amazing fatuity, could not long continue being himself without being cheered and invigorated by that fact, and though when he set out his big white hands were positively trembling with passion, he carried his balsam always with him. But he had registered to himself, even as Michael had registered, the fact that he found his son a most intolerable person. And what vexed him most of all, what made him clang the gate at the end of the field so violently that it hit one of his retrievers shrewdly on the nose, was the sense of his own impotence. He knew perfectly well that in point of view of determination (that quality which in himself was firmness, and in those who opposed him obstinacy) Michael was his match. And the annoying thing was that, as his wife had once told him, Michael undoubtedly inherited that quality from him. It was as inalienable as the estates of which he had threatened to deprive his son, and which, as he knew quite well, were absolutely entailed. Michael, in this regard, seemed no better than a common but successful thief. He had annexed his father's firmness, and at his death would certainly annex all his pictures and trees and acres and the red roofs of Ashbridge.

Michael saw the gate so imperially slammed, he heard the despairing howl of Robin, and though he was sorry for Robin, he could not help laughing. He remembered also a ludicrous sight he had seen at the Zoological Gardens a few days ago: two seals, sitting bolt upright, quarrelling with each other, and making the most absurd grimaces and noises. They neither of them quite dared to attack the other, and so sat with their faces close together, saying the rudest things. Aunt Barbara would certainly have seen how inimitably his father and he had, in their interview just now, resembled the two seals.

And then he became aware that all the time, au fond, he had thought about nothing but Sylvia, and of Sylvia, not as the subject of quarrel, but as just Sylvia, the singing Sylvia, with a hand on his shoulder.

The winter sun was warm on the south terrace of the house, when, an hour later, he strolled out, according to arrangement, with his mother. It had melted the rime of the night before that lay now on the grass in threads of minute diamonds, though below the terrace wall, and on the sunk rims of the empty garden beds it still persisted in outline of white heraldry. A few monthly roses, weak, pink blossoms, weary with the toil of keeping hope alive till the coming of spring, hung dejected heads in the sunk garden, where the hornbeam hedge that carried its russet leaves unfallen, shaded them from the wind. Here, too, a few bulbs had pricked their way above ground, and stood with stout, erect horns daintily capped with rime. All these things, which for years had been presented to Lady Ashbridge's notice without attracting her attention; now filled her with minute childlike pleasure; they were discoveries as entrancing and as magical as the first finding of the oval pieces of blue sky that a child sees one morning in a hedge-sparrow's nest. Now that she was alone with her son, all her secret restlessness and anxiety had vanished, and she remarked almost with glee that her husband had telephoned from the golf links to say that he would not be back for lunch; then, remembering that Michael had gone to talk to his father after breakfast, she asked him about the interview.

Michael had already made up his mind as to what to say here. Knowing that his father was anxious about her, he felt it highly unlikely that he would tell her anything to distress her, and so he represented the interview as having gone off in perfect amity. Later in the day, on his father's return, he had made up his mind to propose a truce between them, as far as his mother was concerned. Whether that would be accepted or not he could not certainly tell, but in the interval there was nothing to be gained by grieving her.

A great weight was lifted off her mind.

"Ah, my dear, that is good," she said. "I was anxious. So now perhaps we shall have a peaceful Christmas. I am glad your Aunt Barbara and Francis are coming, for though your aunt always laughs at your father, she does it kindly, does she not? And as for Francis—my dear, if God had given me two sons, I should have liked the other to be like Francis. And shall we walk a little farther this way, and see poor Petsy's grave?"

Petsy's grave proved rather agitating. There were doleful little stories of the last days to be related, and Petsy II. was tiresome, and insisted on defying the world generally with shrill barkings from the top of the small mound, conscious perhaps that his helpless predecessor slept below. Then their walk brought them to the band of trees that separated the links from the house, from which Lady Ashbridge retreated, fearful, as she vaguely phrased it, "of being seen," and by whom there was no need for her to explain. Then across the field came a group of children scampering home from school. They ceased their shouting and their games as the others came near, and demurely curtsied and took off their caps to Lady Ashbridge.

"Nice, well-behaved children," said she. "A merry Christmas to you all. I hope you are all good children to your mothers, as my son is to me."

She pressed his arm, nodded and smiled at the children, and walked on with him. And Michael felt the lump in his throat.

The arrival of Aunt Barbara and Francis that afternoon did something, by the mere addition of numbers to the party, to relieve the tension of the situation. Lord Ashbridge said little but ate largely, and during the intervals of empty plates directed an impartial gaze at the portraits of his ancestors, while wholly ignoring his descendant. But Michael was too wise to put himself into places where he could be pointedly ignored, and the resplendent dinner, with its six footmen and its silver service, was not really more joyless than usual. But his father's majestic displeasure was more apparent when the three men sat alone afterwards, and it was in dead silence that port was pushed round and cigarettes handed. Francis, it is true, made a couple of efforts to enliven things, but his remarks produced no response whatever from his uncle, and he subsided into himself, thinking with regret of what an amusing evening he would have had if he had only stopped in town. But when they rose Michael signed to his cousin to go on, and planted himself firmly in the path to the door. It was evident that his father did not mean to speak to him, but he could not push by him or walk over him.

"There is one thing I want to say to you, father," said he. "I have told my mother that our interview this morning was quite amicable. I do not see why she should be distressed by knowing that it was not."

His father's face softened a moment.

"Yes, I agree to that," he said.

As far as that went, the compact was observed, and whenever Lady Ashbridge was present her husband made a point of addressing a few remarks to Michael, but there their intercourse ended. Michael found opportunity to explain to Aunt Barbara what had happened, suggesting as a consolatory simile the domestic difficulties of the seals at the Zoological Gardens, and was pleased to find her recognise the aptness of this description. But heaviest of all on the spirits of the whole party sat the anxiety about Lady Ashbridge. There could be no doubt that some cerebral degeneration was occurring, and Lady Barbara's urgent representation to her brother had the effect of making him promise to take her up to London without delay after Christmas, and let a specialist see her. For the present the pious fraud practised on her that Michael and his father had had "a good talk" together, and were excellent friends, sufficed to render her happy and cheerful. She had long, dim talks, full of repetition, with Michael, whose presence appeared to make her completely content, and when he was out or away from her she would sit eagerly waiting for his return. Petsy, to the great benefit of his health, got somewhat neglected by her; her whole nature and instincts were alight with the mother-love that had burnt so late into flame, with this tragic accompaniment of derangement. She seemed to be groping her way back to the days when Michael was a little boy, and she was a young woman; often she would seat herself at her piano, if Michael was not there to play to her, and in a thin, quavering voice sing the songs of twenty years ago. She would listen to his playing, beating time to his music, and most of all she loved the hour when the day was drawing in, and the first shadow and flame of dusk and firelight; then, with her hand in his, sitting in her room, where they would not be interrupted, she would whisper fresh inquiries about Sylvia, offering to go herself to the girl and tell her how lovable her suitor was. She lived in a dim, subaqueous sort of consciousness, physically quite well, and mentally serene in the knowledge that Michael was in the house, and would presently come and talk to her.

For the others it was dismal enough; this shadow, that was to her a watery sunlight, lay over them all—this, and the further quarrel, unknown to her, between Michael and his father. When they all met, as at meal times, there was the miserable pretence of friendliness and comfortable ease kept up, for fear of distressing Lady Ashbridge. It was dreary work for all concerned, but, luckily, not difficult of accomplishment. A little chatter about the weather, the merest small change of conversation, especially if that conversation was held between Michael and his father, was sufficient to wreathe her in smiles, and she would, according to habit, break in with some wrecking remark, that entailed starting this talk all afresh. But when she left the room a glowering silence would fall; Lord Ashbridge would pick up a book or leave the room with his high-stepping walk and erect head, the picture of insulted dignity.

Of the three he was far most to be pitied, although the situation was the direct result of his own arrogance and self-importance; but arrogance and self-importance were as essential ingredients of his character as was humour of Aunt Barbara's. They were very awkward and tiresome qualities, but this particular Lord Ashbridge would have no existence without them. He was deeply and mortally offended with Michael; that alone was sufficient to make a sultry and stifling atmosphere, and in addition to that he had the burden of his anxiety about his wife. Here came an extra sting, for in common humanity he had, by appearing to be friends with Michael, to secure her serenity, and this could only be done by the continued profanation of his own highly proper and necessary attitude towards his son. He had to address friendly words to Michael that really almost choked him; he had to practise cordiality with this wretch who wanted to marry the sister of a music-master. Michael had pulled up all the old traditions, that carefully-tended and pompous flower-garden, as if they had been weeds, and thrown them in his father's face. It was indeed no wonder that, in his wife's absence, he almost burst with indignation over the desecrated beds. More than that, his own self-esteem was hurt by his wife's fear of him, just as if he had been a hard and unkind husband to her, which he had not been, but merely a very self-absorbed and dominant one, while the one person who could make her quite happy was his despised son. Michael's person, Michael's tastes, Michael's whole presence and character were repugnant to him, and yet Michael had the power which, to do Lord Ashbridge justice, he would have given much to be possessed of himself, of bringing comfort and serenity to his wife.

On the afternoon of the day following Christmas the two cousins had been across the estuary to Ashbridge together. Francis, who, in spite of his habitual easiness of disposition and general good temper, had found the conditions of anger and anxiety quite intolerable, had settled to leave next day, instead of stopping till the end of the week, and Michael acquiesced in this without any sense of desertion; he had really only wondered why Francis had stopped three nights, instead of finding urgent private business in town after one. He realised also, somewhat with surprise, that Francis was "no good" when there was trouble about; there was no one so delightful when there was, so to speak, a contest of who should enjoy himself the most, and Francis invariably won. But if the subject of the contest was changed, and the prize given for the individual who, under depressing circumstances, should contrive to show the greatest serenity of aspect, Francis would have lost with an even greater margin. Michael, in fact, was rather relieved than otherwise at his cousin's immediate departure, for it helped nobody to see the martyred St. Sebastian, and it was merely odious for St. Sebastian himself. In fact, at this moment, when Michael was rowing them back across the full-flooded estuary, Francis was explaining this with his customary lucidity.

"I don't do any good here, Mike," he said. "Uncle Robert doesn't speak to me any more than he does to you, except when Aunt Marion is there. And there's nothing going on, is there? I practically asked if I might go duck-shooting to-day, and Uncle Robert merely looked out of the window. But if anybody, specially you, wanted me to stop, why, of course I would."

"But I don't," said Michael.

"Thanks awfully. Gosh, look at those ducks! They're just wanting to be shot. But there it is, then. Certainly Uncle Robert doesn't want me, nor Aunt Marion. I say, what do they think is the matter with her?"

Michael looked round, then took, rather too late, another pull on his oars, and the boat gently grated on the pebbly mud at the side of the landing-place. Francis's question, the good-humoured insouciance of it grated on his mind in rather similar fashion.

"We don't know yet," he said. "I expect we shall all go back to town in a couple of days, so that she may see somebody."

Francis jumped out briskly and gracefully, and stood with his hands in his pockets while Michael pushed off again, and brought the boat into its shed.

"I do hope it's nothing serious," he said. "She looks quite well, doesn't she? I daresay it's nothing; but she's been alone, hasn't she, with Uncle Robert all these weeks. That would give her the hump, too."

Michael felt a sudden spasm of impatience at these elegant and consoling reflections. But now, in the light of his own increasing maturity, he saw how hopeless it was to feel Francis's deficiencies, his entire lack of deep feeling. He was made like that; and if you were fond of anybody the only possible way of living up to your affection was to attach yourself to their qualities.

They strolled a little way in silence.

"And why did you tell Uncle Robert about Sylvia Falbe?" asked Francis. "I can't understand that. For the present, anyhow, she had refused you. There was nothing to tell him about. If I was fond of a girl like that I should say nothing about it, if I knew my people would disapprove, until I had got her."

Michael laughed.

"Oh, yes you would," he said, "if you were to use your own words, fond of her 'like that.' You couldn't help it. At least, I couldn't. It's—it's such a glory to be fond like that."

He stopped.

"We won't talk about it," he said—"or, rather, I can't talk about it, if you don't understand."

"But she had refused you," said the sensible Francis.

"That makes no difference. She shines through everything, through the infernal awfulness of these days, through my father's anger, and my mother's illness, whatever it proves to be—I think about them really with all my might, and at the end I find I've been thinking about Sylvia. Everything is she—the woods, the tide—oh, I can't explain."

They had walked across the marshy land at the edge of the estuary, and now in front of them was the steep and direct path up to the house, and the longer way through the woods. At this point the estuary made a sudden turn to the left, sweeping directly seawards, and round the corner, immediately in front of them was the long reach of deep water up which, even when the tide was at its lowest, an ocean-going steamer could penetrate if it knew the windings of the channel. To-day, in the windless, cold calm of mid-winter, though the sun was brilliant in a blue sky overhead, an opaque mist, thick as cotton-wool, lay over the surface of the water, and, taking the winding road through the woods, which, following the estuary, turned the point, they presently found themselves, as they mounted, quite clear of the mist that lay below them on the river. Their steps were noiseless on the mossy path, and almost immediately after they had turned the corner, as Francis paused to light a cigarette, they heard from just below them the creaking of oars in their rowlocks. It caught the ears of them both, and without conscious curiosity they listened. On the moment the sound of rowing ceased, and from the dense mist just below them there came a sound which was quite unmistakable, namely, the "plop" of something heavy dropped into the water. That sound, by some remote form of association, suddenly recalled to Michael's mind certain questions Aunt Barbara had asked him about the Emperor's stay at Ashbridge, and his own recollection of his having gone up and down the river in a launch. There was something further, which he did not immediately recollect. Yes, it was the request that if when he was here at Christmas he found strangers hanging about the deep-water reach, of which the chart was known only to the Admiralty, he should let her know. Here at this moment they were overlooking the mist-swathed water, and here at this moment, unseen, was a boat rowing stealthily, stopping, and, perhaps, making soundings.

He laid his hand on Francis's arm with a gesture for silence, then, invisible below, someone said, "Fifteen fathoms," and again the oars creaked audibly in the rowlocks.

Michael took a step towards his cousin, so that he could whisper to him.

"Come back to the boat," he said. "I want to row round and see who that is. Wait a moment, though."

The oars below made some half-dozen strokes, and then were still again. Once more there came the sound of something heavy dropped into the water.

"Someone is making soundings in the channel there," he said. "Come."

They went very quietly till they were round the point, then quickened their steps, and Michael spoke.

"That's the uncharted channel," he said; "at least, only the Admiralty have the soundings. The water's deep enough right across for a ship of moderate draught to come up, but there is a channel up which any man-of-war can pass. Of course, it may be an Admiralty boat making fresh soundings, but not likely on Boxing Day."

"What are you going to do?" asked Francis, striding easily along by Michael's short steps.

"Just see if we can find out who it is. Aunt Barbara asked me about it. I'll tell you afterwards. Now the tide's going out we can drop down with it, and we shan't be heard. I'll row just enough to keep her head straight. Sit in the bow, Francis, and keep a sharp look-out."

Foot by foot they dropped down the river, and soon came into the thick mist that lay beyond the point. It was impossible to see more than a yard or two ahead, but the same dense obscurity would prevent any further range of vision from the other boat, and, if it was still at its work, the sound of its oars or of voices, Michael reflected, might guide him to it. From the lisp of little wavelets lapping on the shore below the woods, he knew he was quite close in to the bank, and close also to the place where the invisible boat had been ten minutes before. Then, in the bewildering, unlocalised manner in which sound without the corrective guidance of sight comes to the ears, he heard as before the creaking of invisible oars, somewhere quite close at hand. Next moment the dark prow of a rowing-boat suddenly loomed into sight on their starboard, and he took a rapid stroke with his right-hand scull to bring them up to it. But at the same moment, while yet the occupants of the other boat were but shadows in the mist, they saw him, and a quick word of command rang out.

"Row—row hard!" it cried, and with a frenzied churning of oars in the water, the other boat shot by them, making down the estuary. Next moment it had quite vanished in the mist, leaving behind it knots of swirling water from its oar-blades.

Michael started in vain pursuit; his craft was heavy and clumsy, and from the retreating and faint-growing sound of the other, it was clear that he could get no pace to match, still less to overtake them. Soon he pantingly desisted.

"But an Admiralty boat wouldn't have run away," he said. "They'd have asked us who the devil we were."

"But who else was it?" asked Francis.

Michael mopped his forehead.

"Aunt Barbara would tell you," he said. "She would tell you that they were German spies."

Francis laughed.

"Or Timbuctoo niggers," he remarked.

"And that would be an odd thing, too," said Michael.

But at that moment he felt the first chill of the shadow that menaced, if by chance Aunt Barbara was right, and if already the clear tranquillity of the sky was growing dim as with the mist that lay that afternoon on the waters of the deep reach, and covered mysterious movements which were going on below it. England and Germany—there was so much of his life and his heart there. Music and song, and Sylvia.

CHAPTER X

Michael had heard the verdict of the brain specialist, who yesterday had seen his mother, and was sitting in his room beside his unopened piano quietly assimilating it, and, without making plans of his own initiative, contemplating the forms into which the future was beginning to fall, mapping itself out below him, outlining itself as when objects in a room, as the light of morning steals in, take shape again. And even as they take the familiar shapes, so already he felt that he had guessed all this in that week down at Ashbridge, from which he had returned with his father and mother a couple of days before.

She was suffering, without doubt, from some softening of the brain; nothing of remedial nature could possibly be done to arrest or cure the progress of the disease, and all that lay in human power was to secure for her as much content and serenity as possible. In her present condition there was no question of putting her under restraint, nor, indeed, could she be certified by any doctor as insane. She would have to have a trained attendant, she would live a secluded life, from which must be kept as far as possible anything that could agitate or distress her, and after that there was nothing more that could be done except to wait for the inevitable development of her malady. This might come quickly or slowly; there was no means of forecasting that, though the rapid deterioration of her brain, which had taken place during those last two months, made it, on the whole, likely that the progress of the disease would be swift. It was quite possible, on the other hand, that it might remain stationary for months. . . . And in answer to a question of Michael's, Sir James had looked at him a moment in silence. Then he answered.

"Both for her sake and for the sake of all of you," he had said, "one hopes that it will be swift."

Lord Ashbridge had just telephoned that he was coming round to see Michael, a message that considerably astonished him, since it would have been more in his manner, in the unlikely event of his wishing to see his son, to have summoned him to the house in Curzon Street. However, he had announced his advent, and thus, waiting for him, and not much concerning himself about that, Michael let the future map itself. Already it was sharply defined, its boundaries and limits were clear, and though it was yet untravelled it presented to him a familiar aspect, and he felt that he could find his allotted road without fail, though he had never yet traversed it. It was strongly marked; there could be no difficulty or question about it. Indeed, a week ago, when first the recognition of his mother's condition, with the symptoms attached to it, was known to him, he had seen the signpost that directed him into the future.

Lord Ashbridge made his usual flamboyant entry, prancing and swinging his elbows. Whatever happened he would still be Lord Ashbridge, with his grey top-hat and his large carnation and his enviable position.

"You will have heard what Sir James's opinion is about your poor mother," he said. "It was in consequence of what he recommended when he talked over the future with me that I came to see you."

Michael guessed very well what this recommendation was, but with a certain stubbornness and sense of what was due to himself, he let his father proceed with the not very welcome task of telling him.

"In fact, Michael," he said, "I have a favour to ask of you."

The fact of his being Lord Ashbridge, and the fact of Michael being his unsatisfactory son, stiffened him, and he had to qualify the favour.

"Perhaps I should not say I am about to ask you a favour," he corrected himself, "but rather to point out to you what is your obvious duty."

Suddenly it struck Michael that his father was not thinking about Lady Ashbridge at all, nor about him, but in the main about himself. All had to be done from the dominant standpoint; he owed it to himself to alleviate the conditions under which his wife must live; he owed it to himself that his son should do his part as a Comber. There was no longer any possible doubt as to what this favour, or this direction of duty, must be, but still Michael chose that his father should state it. He pushed a chair forward for him.

"Won't you sit down?" he said.

"Thank you, I would rather stand. Yes; it is not so much a favour as the indication of your duty. I do not know if you will see it in the same light as I; you have shown me before now that we do not take the same view."

Michael felt himself bristling. His father certainly had the effect of drawing out in him all the feelings that were better suppressed.

"I think we need not talk of that now, sir," he remarked.

"Certainly it is not the subject of my interview with you now. The fact is this. In some way your presence gives a certain serenity and content to your mother. I noticed that at Ashbridge, and, indeed, there has been some trouble with her this morning because I could not take her to come to see you with me. I ask you, therefore, for her sake, to be with us as much as you can, in short, to come and live with us."

Michael nodded, saluting, so to speak, the signpost into the future as he passed it.

"I had already determined to do that," he said. "I had determined, at any rate, to ask your permission to do so. It is clear that my mother wants me, and no other consideration can weigh with that."

Lord Ashbridge still remained completely self-sufficient.

"I am glad you take that view of it," he said. "I think that is all I have to say."

Now Michael was an adept at giving; as indicated before, when he gave, he gave nobly, and he could not only outwardly disregard, but he inwardly cancelled the wonderful ungenerosity with which his father received. That did not concern him.

"I will make arrangements to come at once," he said, "if you can receive me to-day."

"That will hardly be worth while, will it? I am taking your mother back to Ashbridge tomorrow."

Michael got up in silence. After all, this gift of himself, of his time, of his liberty, of all that constituted life to him, was made not to his father, but to his mother. It was made, as his heart knew, not ungrudgingly only, but eagerly, and if it had been recommended by the doctor that she should go to Ashbridge, he would have entirely disregarded the large additional sacrifice on himself which it entailed. Thus it was not owing to any retraction of his gift, or reconsideration of it, that he demurred.

"I hope you will—will meet me half-way about this, sir," he said. "You must remember that all my work lies in London. I want, naturally, to continue that as far as I can. If you go to Ashbridge it is completely interrupted. My friends are here too; everything I have is here."

His father seemed to swell a little; he appeared to fill the room.

"And all my duties lie at Ashbridge," he said. "As you know, I am not of the type of absentee landlords. It is quite impossible that I should spend these months in idleness in town. I have never done such a thing yet, nor, I may say, would our class hold the position they do if we did. We shall come up to town after Easter, should your mother's health permit it, but till then I could not dream of neglecting my duties in the country."

Now Michael knew perfectly well what his father's duties on that excellently managed estate were. They consisted of a bi-weekly interview in the "business-room" (an abode of files and stags' heads, in which Lord Ashbridge received various reports of building schemes and repairs), of a round of golf every afternoon, and of reading the lessons and handing the offertory-box on Sunday. That, at least, was the sum-total as it presented itself to him, and on which he framed his conclusions. But he left out altogether the moral effect of the big landlord living on his own land, and being surrounded by his own dependents, which his father, on the other hand, so vastly over-estimated. It was clear that there was not likely to be much accord between them on this subject.

"But could you not go down there perhaps once or twice a week, and get Bailey to come and consult you here?" he asked.

Lord Ashbridge held his head very high.

"That would be completely out of the question," he said.

All this, Michael felt, had nothing to do with the problem of his mother and himself. It was outside it altogether, and concerned only his father's convenience. He was willing to press this point as far as possible.

"I had imagined you would stop in London," he said. "Supposing under these circumstances I refuse to live with you?"

"I should draw my own conclusion as to the sincerity of your profession of duty towards your mother."

"And practically what would you do?" asked Michael.

"Your mother and I would go to Ashbridge tomorrow all the same."

Another alternative suddenly suggested itself to Michael which he was almost ashamed of proposing, for it implied that his father put his own convenience as outweighing any other consideration. But he saw that if only Lord Ashbridge was selfish enough to consent to it, it had manifest merits. His mother would be alone with him, free of the presence that so disconcerted her.

"I propose, then," he said, "that she and I should remain in town, as you want to be at Ashbridge."

He had been almost ashamed of suggesting it, but no such shame was reflected in his father's mind. This would relieve him of the perpetual embarrassment of his wife's presence, and the perpetual irritation of Michael's. He had persuaded himself that he was making a tremendous personal sacrifice in proposing that Michael should live with them, and this relieved him of the necessity.

"Upon my word, Michael," he said, with the first hint of cordiality that he had displayed, "that is very well thought of. Let us consider; it is certainly the case that this derangement in your poor mother's mind has caused her to take what I might almost call a dislike to me. I mentioned that to Sir James, though it was very painful for me to do so, and he said that it was a common and most distressing symptom of brain disease, that the sufferer often turned against those he loved best. Your plan would have the effect of removing that."

He paused a moment, and became even more sublimely fatuous.

"You, too," he said, "it would obviate the interruption of your work, about which you feel so keenly. You would be able to go on with it. Of myself, I don't think at all. I shall be lonely, no doubt, at Ashbridge, but my own personal feelings must not be taken into account. Yes; it seems to me a very sensible notion. We shall have to see what your mother says to it. She might not like me to be away from her, in spite of her apparent—er—dislike of me. It must all depend on her attitude. But for my part I think very well of your scheme. Thank you, Michael, for suggesting it."

He left immediately after this to ascertain Lady Ashbridge's feelings about it, and walked home with a complete resumption of his usual exuberance. It indeed seemed an admirable plan. It relieved him from the nightmare of his wife's continual presence, and this he expressed to himself by thinking that it relieved her from his. It was not that he was deficient in sympathy for her, for in his self-centred way he was fond of her, but he could sympathise with her just as well at Ashbridge. He could do no good to her, and he had not for her that instinct of love which would make it impossible for him to leave her. He would also be spared the constant irritation of having Michael in the house, and this he expressed to himself by saying that Michael disliked him, and would be far more at his ease without him. Furthermore, Michael would be able to continue his studies . . . of this too, in spite of the fact that he had always done his best to discourage them, he made a self-laudatory translation, by telling himself that he was very glad not to have to cause Michael to discontinue them. In fine, he persuaded himself, without any difficulty, that he was a very fine fellow in consenting to a plan that suited him so admirably, and only wondered that he had not thought of it himself. There was nothing, after his wife had expressed her joyful acceptance of it, to detain him in town, and he left for Ashbridge that afternoon, while Michael moved into the house in Curzon Street.

Michael entered upon his new life without the smallest sense of having done anything exceptional or even creditable. It was so perfectly obvious to him that he had to be with his mother that he had no inclination to regard himself at all in the matter; the thing was as simple as it had been to him to help Francis out of financial difficulties with a gift of money. There was no effort of will, no sense of sacrifice about it, it was merely the assertion of a paramount instinct. The life limited his freedom, for, for a great part of the day he was with his mother, and between his music and his attendance on her, he had but little leisure. Occasionally he went out to see his friends, but any prolonged absence on his part always made her uneasy, and he would often find her, on his return, sitting in the hall, waiting for him, so as to enjoy his presence from the first moment that he re-entered the house. But though he found no food for reflection in himself, Aunt Barbara, who came to see them some few days after Michael had been installed here, found a good deal.

They had all had tea together, and afterwards Lady Ashbridge's nurse had come down to fetch her upstairs to rest. And then Aunt Barbara surprised Michael, for she came across the room to him, with her kind eyes full of tears, and kissed him.

"My dear, I must say it once," she said, "and then you will know that it is always in my mind. You have behaved nobly, Michael; it's a big word, but I know no other. As for your father—"

Michael interrupted her.

"Oh, I don't understand him," he said. "At least, that's the best way to look at it. Let's leave him out."

He paused a moment.

"After all, it is a much better plan than our living all three of us at Ashbridge. It's better for my mother, and for me, and for him."

"I know, but how he could consent to the better plan," she said. "Well, let us leave him out. Poor Robert! He and his golf. My dear, your father is a very ludicrous person, you know. But about you, Michael, do you think you can stand it?"

He smiled at her.

"Why, of course I can," he said. "Indeed, I don't think I'll accept that statement of it. It's—it's such a score to be able to be of use, you know. I can make my mother happy. Nobody else can. I think I'm getting rather conceited about it."

"Yes, dear; I find you insufferable," remarked Aunt Barbara parenthetically.

"Then you must just bear it. The thing is"—Michael took a moment to find the words he searched for—"the thing is I want to be wanted. Well, it's no light thing to be wanted by your mother, even if—"

He sat down on the sofa by his aunt.

"Aunt Barbara, how ironically gifts come," he said. "This was rather a sinister way of giving, that my mother should want me like this just as her brain was failing. And yet that failure doesn't affect the quality of her love. Is it something that shines through the poor tattered fabric? Anyhow, it has nothing to do with her brain. It is she herself, somehow, not anything of hers, that wants me. And you ask if I can stand it?"

Michael with his ugly face and his kind eyes and his simple heart seemed extraordinarily charming just then to Aunt Barbara. She wished that Sylvia could have seen him then in all the unconsciousness of what he was doing so unquestioningly, or that she could have seen him as she had with his mother during the last hour. Lady Ashbridge had insisted on sitting close to him, and holding his hand whenever she could possess herself of it, of plying him with a hundred repeated questions, and never once had she made Michael either ridiculous or self-conscious. And this, she reflected, went on most of the day, and for how many days it would go on, none knew. Yet Michael could not consider even whether he could stand it; he rejected the expression as meaningless.

"And your friends?" she said. "Do you manage to see them?"

"Oh, yes, occasionally," said Michael. "They don't come here, for the presence of strangers makes my mother agitated. She thinks they have some design of taking her or me away. But she wants to see Sylvia. She knows about—about her and me, and I can't make up my mind what to do about it. She is always asking if I can't take her to see Sylvia, or get her to come here."

"And why not? Sylvia knows about your mother, I suppose."

"I expect so. I told Hermann. But I am afraid my mother will—well, you can't call it arguing—but will try to persuade her to have me. I can't let Sylvia in for that. Nor, if it comes to that, can I let myself in for that."

"Can't you impress on your mother that she mustn't?"

Michael leaned forward to the fire, pondering this, and stretching out his big hands to the blaze.

"Yes, I might," he said. "I should love to see Sylvia again, just see her, you know. We settled that the old terms we were on couldn't continue. At least, I settled that, and she understood."

"Sylvia is a gaby," remarked Aunt Barbara.

"I'm rather glad you think so."

"Oh, get her to come," said she. "I'm sure your mother will do as you tell her. I'll be here too, if you like, if that will do any good. By the way, I see your Hermann's piano recital comes off to-morrow."

"I know. My mother wants to go to that, and I think I shall take her. Will you come too, Aunt Barbara, and sit on the other side of her? My 'Variations' are going to be played. If they are a success, Hermann tells me I shall be dragged screaming on to the platform, and have to bow. Lord! And if they're not, well, 'Lord' also."

"Yes, my dear, of course I'll come. Let me see, I shall have to lie, as I have another engagement, but a little thing like that doesn't bother me."

Suddenly she clapped her hands together.

"My dear, I quite forgot," she said. "Michael, such excitement. You remember the boat you heard taking soundings on the deep-water reach? Of course you do! Well, I sent that information to the proper quarter, and since then watch has been kept in the woods just above it. Last night only the coastguard police caught four men at it—all Germans. They tried to escape as they did before, by rowing down the river, but there was a steam launch below which intercepted them. They had on them a chart of the reach, with soundings, nearly complete; and when they searched their houses—they are all tenants of your astute father, who merely laughed at us—they found a very decent map of certain private areas at Harwich. Oh, I'm not such a fool as I look. They thanked me, my dear, for my information, and I very gracefully said that my information was chiefly got by you."

"But did those men live in Ashbridge?" asked Michael.

"Yes; and your father will have four decorous houses on his hands. I am glad: he should not have laughed at us. It will teach him, I hope. And now, my dear, I must go."

She stood up, and put her hand on Michael's arm.

"And you know what I think of you," she said. "To-morrow evening, then. I hate music usually; but then I adore Mr. Hermann. I only wish he wasn't a German. Can't you get him to naturalise himself and his sister?"

"You wouldn't ask that if you had seen him in Munich," said Michael.

"I suppose not. Patriotism is such a degrading emotion when it is not English."

Michael's "Variations" came some half-way down the programme next evening, and as the moment for them approached, Lady Ashbridge got more and more excited.

"I hope he knows them by heart properly, dear," she whispered to Michael. "I shall be so nervous for fear he'll forget them in the middle, which is so liable to happen if you play without your notes."

Michael laid his hand on his mother's.

"Hush, mother," he said, "you mustn't talk while he's playing."

"Well, I was only whispering. But if you tell me I mustn't—"

The hall was crammed from end to end, for not only was Hermann a person of innumerable friends, but he had already a considerable reputation, and, being a German, all musical England went to hear him. And to-night he was playing superbly, after a couple of days of miserable nervousness over his debut as a pianist; but his temperament was one of those that are strung up to their highest pitch by such nervous agonies; he required just that to make him do full justice to his own personality, and long before he came to the "Variations," Michael felt quite at ease about his success. There was no question about it any more: the whole audience knew that they were listening to a master. In the row immediately behind Michael's party were sitting Sylvia and her mother, who had not quite been torn away from her novels, since she had sought "The Love of Hermione Hogarth" underneath her cloak, and read it furtively in pauses. They had come in after Michael, and until the interval between the classical and the modern section of the concert he was unaware of their presence; then idly turning round to look at the crowded hall, he found himself face to face with the girl.

"I had no idea you were there," he said. "Hermann will do, won't he? I think—"

And then suddenly the words of commonplace failed him, and he looked at her in silence.

"I knew you were back," she said. "Hermann told me about—everything."

Michael glanced sideways, indicating his mother, who sat next him, and was talking to Barbara.

"I wondered whether perhaps you would come and see my mother and me," he said. "May I write?"

She looked at him with the friendliness of her smiling eyes and her grave mouth.

"Is it necessary to ask?" she said.

Michael turned back to his seat, for his mother had had quite enough of her sister-in-law, and wanted him again. She looked over her shoulder for a moment to see whom Michael was talking to.

"I'm enjoying my concert, dear," she said. "And who is that nice young lady? Is she a friend of yours?"

The interval was over, and Hermann returned to the platform, and waiting for a moment for the buzz of conversation to die down, gave out, without any preliminary excursion on the keys, the text of Michael's "Variations." Then he began to tell them, with light and flying fingers, what that simple tune had suggested to Michael, how he imagined himself looking on at an old-fashioned dance, and while the dancers moved to the graceful measure of a minuet, or daintily in a gavotte, the tune of "Good King Wenceslas" still rang in his head, or, how in the joy of the sunlight of a spring morning it still haunted him. It lay behind a cascade of foaming waters that, leaping, roared into a ravine; it marched with flying banners on some day of victorious entry, it watched a funeral procession wind by, with tapers and the smell of incense; it heard, as it got nearer back to itself again, the peals of Christmas bells, and stood forth again in its own person, decorated and emblazoned.

Hermann had already captured his audience; now he held them tame in the hollow of his hand. Twice he bowed, and then, in answer to the demand, just beckoned with his finger to Michael, who rose. For a moment his mother wished to detain him.

"You're not going to leave me, my dear, are you?" she asked anxiously.

He waited to explain to her quietly, left her, and, feeling rather dazed, made his way round to the back and saw the open door on to the platform confronting him. He felt that no power on earth could make him step into the naked publicity there, but at the moment Hermann appeared in the doorway.

"Come on, Mike," he said, laughing. "Thank the pretty ladies and gentlemen! Lord, isn't it all a lark!"

Michael advanced with him, stared and hoped he smiled properly, though he felt that he was nailing some hideous grimace to his face; and then just below him he saw his mother eagerly pointing him out to a total stranger, with gesticulation, and just behind her Sylvia looking at her, and not at him, with such tenderness, such kindly pity. There were the two most intimately bound into his life, the mother who wanted him, the girl whom he wanted; and by his side was Hermann, who, as Michael always knew, had thrown open the gates of life to him. All the rest, even including Aunt Barbara, seemed of no significance in that moment. Afterwards, no doubt, he would be glad they were pleased, be proud of having pleased them; but just now, even when, for the first time in his life, that intoxicating wine of appreciation was given him, he stood with it bubbling and yellow in his hand, not drinking of it.

Michael had prepared the way of Sylvia's coming by telling his mother the identity of the "nice young lady" at the concert; he had also impressed on her the paramount importance of not saying anything with regard to him that could possibly embarrass the nice young lady, and when Sylvia came to tea a few days later, he was quite without any uneasiness, while for himself he was only conscious of that thirst for her physical presence, the desire, as he had said to Aunt Barbara, "just to see her." Nor was there the slightest embarrassment in their meeting! it was clear that there was not the least difficulty either for him or her in being natural, which, as usually happens, was the complete solution.

"That is good of you to come," he said, meeting her almost at the door. "My mother has been looking forward to your visit. Mother dear, here is Miss Falbe."

Lady Ashbridge was pathetically eager to be what she called "good." Michael had made it clear to her that it was his wish that Miss Falbe should not be embarrassed, and any wish just now expressed by Michael was of the nature of a divine command to her.

"Well, this is a pleasure," she said, looking across to Michael with the eyes of a dog on a beloved master. "And we are not strangers quite, are we, Miss Falbe? We sat so near each other to listen to your brother, who I am sure plays beautifully, and the music which Michael made. Haven't I got a clever son, and such a good one?"

Sylvia was unerring. Michael had known she would be.

"Indeed, you have," she said, sitting down by her. "And Michael mustn't hear what we say about him, must he, or he'll be getting conceited."

Lady Ashbridge laughed.

"And that would never do, would it?" she said, still retaining Sylvia's hand. Then a little dim ripple of compunction broke in her mind. "Michael," she said, "we are only joking about your getting conceited. Miss Falbe and I are only joking. And—and won't you take off your hat, Miss Falbe, for you are not going to hurry away, are you? You are going to pay us a long visit."

Michael had not time to remind his mother that ladies who come to tea do not usually take their hats off, for on the word Sylvia's hands were busy with her hatpins.

"I'm so glad you suggested that," she said. "I always want to take my hat off. I don't know who invented hats, but I wish he hadn't."

Lady Ashbridge looked at her masses of bright hair, and could not help telegraphing a note of admiration, as it were, to Michael.

"Now, that's more comfortable," she said. "You look as if you weren't going away next minute. When I like to see people, I hate their going away. I'm afraid sometimes that Michael will go away, but he tells me he won't. And you liked Michael's music, Miss Falbe? Was it not clever of him to think of all that out of one simple little tune? And he tells me you sing so nicely. Perhaps you would sing to us when we've had tea. Oh, and here is my sister-in-law. Do you know her—Lady Barbara? My dear, what is your husband's name?"

Seeing Sylvia uncovered, Lady Barbara, with a tact that was creditable to her, but strangely unsuccessful, also began taking off her hat. Her sister-in-law was too polite to interfere, but, as a matter of fact, she did not take much pleasure in the notion that Barbara was going to stay a very long time, too. She was fond of her, but it was not Barbara whom Michael wanted. She turned her attention to the girl again.

"My husband's away," she said, confidentially; "he is very busy down at Ashbridge, and I daresay he won't find time to come up to town for many weeks yet. But, you know, Michael and I do very well without him, very well, indeed, and it would never do to take him away from his duties—would it, Michael?"

Here was a shoal to be avoided.

"No, you mustn't think of tempting him to come up to town," said Michael. "Give me some tea for Aunt Barbara."

This answer entranced Lady Ashbridge; she had to nudge Michael several times to show that she understood the brilliance of it, and put lump after lump of sugar into Barbara's cup in her rapt appreciation of it. But very soon she turned to Sylvia again.

"And your brother is a friend of Michael's, too, isn't he?" she said. "Some day perhaps he will come to see me. We don't see many people, Michael and I, for we find ourselves very well content alone. But perhaps some day he will come and play his concert over again to us; and then, perhaps, if you ask me, I will sing to you. I used to sing a great deal when I was younger. Michael—where has Michael gone?"

Michael had just left the room to bring some cigarettes in from next door, and Lady Ashbridge ran after him, calling him. She found him in the hall, and brought him back triumphantly.

"Now we will all sit and talk for a long time," she said. "You one side of me, Miss Falbe, and Michael the other. Or would you be so kind as to sing for us? Michael will play for you, and would it annoy you if I came and turned over the pages? It would give me a great deal of pleasure to turn over for you, if you will just nod each time when you are ready."

Sylvia got up.

"Why, of course," she said. "What have you got, Michael? I haven't anything with me."

Michael found a volume of Schubert, and once again, as on the first time he had seen her, she sang "Who is Sylvia?" while he played, and Lady Ashbridge had her eyes fixed now on one and now on the other of them, waiting for their nod to do her part; and then she wanted to sing herself, and with some far-off remembrance of the airs and graces of twenty-five years ago, she put her handkerchief and her rings on the top of the piano, and, playing for herself, emitted faint treble sounds which they knew to be "The Soldier's Farewell."

Then presently her nurse came for her to lie down before dinner, and she was inclined to be tearful and refuse to go till Michael made it clear that it was his express and sovereign will that she should do so. Then very audibly she whispered to him. "May I ask her to give me a kiss?" she said. "She looks so kind, Michael, I don't think she would mind."

Sylvia went back home with a little heartache for Michael, wondering, if she was in his place, if her mother, instead of being absorbed in her novels, demanded such incessant attentions, whether she had sufficient love in her heart to render them with the exquisite simplicity, the tender patience that Michael showed. Well as she knew him, greatly as she liked him, she had not imagined that he, or indeed any man could have behaved quite like that. There seemed no effort at all about it; he was not trying to be patient; he had the sense of "patience's perfect work" natural to him; he did not seem to have to remind himself that his mother was ill, and thus he must be gentle with her. He was gentle with her because he was in himself gentle. And yet, though his behaviour was no effort to him, she guessed how wearying must be the continual strain of the situation itself. She felt that she would get cross from mere fatigue, however excellent her intentions might be, however willing the spirit. And no one, so she had understood from Barbara, could take Michael's place. In his occasional absences his mother was fretful and miserable, and day by day Michael left her less. She would sit close to him when he was practising—a thing that to her or to Hermann would have rendered practice impossible—and if he wrestled with one hand over a difficult bar, she would take the other into hers, would ask him if he was not getting tired, would recommend him to rest for a little; and yet Michael, who last summer had so stubbornly insisted on leading his own life, and had put his determination into effect in the teeth of all domestic opposition, now with more than cheerfulness laid his own life aside in order to look after his mother. Sylvia felt that the real heroisms of life were not so much the fine heady deeds which are so obviously admirable, as such serene steadfastness, such unvarying patience as that which she had just seen.

Her whole soul applauded Michael, and yet below her applause was this heartache for him, the desire to be able to help him to bear the burden which must be so heavy, though he bore it so blithely. But in the very nature of things there was but one way in which she could help him, and in that she was powerless. She could not give him what he wanted. But she longed to be able to.

CHAPTER XI

It was a morning of early March, and Michael, looking out from the dining-room window at the house in Curzon Street, where he had just breakfasted alone, was smitten with wonder and a secret ecstasy, for he suddenly saw and felt that it was winter no longer, but that spring had come. For the last week the skies had screamed with outrageous winds and had been populous with flocks of sullen clouds that discharged themselves in sleet and snowy rain, and half last night, for he had slept very badly, he had heard the dashing of showers, as of wind-driven spray, against the window-panes, and had listened to the fierce rattling of the frames. Towards morning he had slept, and during those hours it seemed that a new heaven and a new earth had come into being; vitally and essentially the world was a different affair altogether.

At the back of the house on to which these windows looked was a garden of some half acre, a square of somewhat sooty grass, bounded by high walls, with a few trees at the further end. Into it, too, had the message that thrilled through his bones penetrated, and this little oasis of doubtful grass and blackened shrubs had a totally different aspect to-day from that which it had worn all those weeks. The sparrows that had sat with fluffed-up feathers in corners sheltered from the gales, were suddenly busy and shrilly vocal, chirruping and dragging about straws, and flying from limb to limb of the trees with twigs in their beaks. For the first time he noticed that little verdant cabochons of folded leaf had globed themselves on the lilac bushes below the window, crocuses had budded, and in the garden beds had shot up the pushing spikes of bulbs, while in the sooty grass he could see specks and patches of vivid green, the first growth of the year.

He opened the window and strolled out. The whole taste and savour of the air was changed, and borne on the primrose-coloured sunshine came the smell of damp earth, no longer dead and reeking of the decay of autumn, but redolent with some new element, something fertile and fecund, something daintily, indefinably laden with the secret of life and restoration. The grey, lumpy clouds were gone, and instead chariots of dazzling white bowled along the infinite blue expanse, harnessed to the southwest wind. But, above all, the sparrows dragged straws to and fro, loudly chirruping. All spring was indexed there.

For a moment Michael was entranced with the exquisite moment, and stood sunning his soul in spring. But then he felt the fetters of his own individual winter heavy on him again, and he could only see what was happening without feeling it. For that moment he had felt the leap in his blood, but the next he was conscious again of the immense fatigue that for weeks had been growing on him. The task which he had voluntarily taken on himself had become no lighter with habit, the incessant attendance on his mother and the strain of it got heavier day by day. For some time now her childlike content in his presence had been clouded and, instead, she was constantly depressed and constantly querulous with him, finding fault with his words and his silences, and in her confused and muffled manner blaming him and affixing sinister motives to his most innocent actions. But she was still entirely dependent on him, and if he left her for an hour or two, she would wait in an agony of anxiety for his return, and when he came back overwhelmed him with tearful caresses and the exaction of promises not to go away again. Then, feeling certain of him once more, she would start again on complaints and reproaches. Her doctor had warned him that it looked as if some new phase of her illness was approaching, which might necessitate the complete curtailment of her liberty; but day had succeeded to day and she still remained in the same condition, neither better nor worse, but making every moment a burden to Michael.

It had been necessary that Sylvia should discontinue her visits, for some weeks ago Lady Ashbridge had suddenly taken a dislike to her, and, when she came, would sit in silent and lofty displeasure, speaking to her as little as possible, and treating her with a chilling and awful politeness. Michael had enough influence with his mother to prevent her telling the girl what her crime had been, which was her refusal to marry him; but, when he was alone with his mother, he had to listen to torrents of these complaints. Lady Ashbridge, with a wealth of language that had lain dormant in her all her life, sarcastically supposed that Miss Falbe was a princess in disguise ("very impenetrable disguise, for I'm sure she reminds me of a barmaid more than a princess"), and thought that such a marriage would be beneath her. Or, another time, she hinted that Miss Falbe might be already married; indeed, this seemed a very plausible explanation of her attitude. She desired, in fact, that Sylvia should not come to see her any more, and now, when she did not, there was scarcely a day in which Lady Ashbridge would not talk in a pointed manner about pretended friends who leave you alone, and won't even take the trouble to take a two-penny 'bus (if they are so poor as all that) to come from Chelsea to Curzon Street.

Michael knew that his mother's steps were getting nearer and nearer to that border line which separates the sane from the insane, and with all the wearing strain of the days as they passed, had but the one desire in his heart, namely, to keep her on the right side for as long as was humanly possible. But something might happen, some new symptom develop which would make it impossible for her to go on living with him as she did now, and the dread of that moment haunted his waking hours and his dreams. Two months ago her doctor had told him that, for the sake of everyone concerned, it was to be hoped that the progress of her disease would be swift; but, for his part, Michael passionately disclaimed such a wish. In spite of her constant complaints and strictures, she was still possessed of her love for him, and, wearing though every day was, he grudged the passing of the hours that brought her nearer to the awful boundary line. Had a deed been presented to him for his signature, which bound him indefinitely to his mother's service, on the condition that she got no worse, his pen would have spluttered with his eagerness to sign.

In consequence of his mother's dislike to Sylvia, Michael had hardly seen her during this last month. Once, when owing to some small physical disturbance, Lady Ashbridge had gone to bed early on a Sunday evening, he had gone to one of the Falbes' weekly parties, and had tried to fling himself with enjoyment into the friendly welcoming atmosphere. But for the present, he felt himself detached from it all, for this life with his mother was close round him with a sort of nightmare obsession, through which outside influence and desire could only faintly trickle. He knew that the other life was there, he knew that in his heart he longed for Sylvia as much as ever; but, in his present detachment, his desire for her was a drowsy ache, a remote emptiness, and the veil that lay over his mother seemed to lie over him also. Once, indeed, during the evening, when he had played for her, the veil had lifted and for the drowsy ache he had the sunlit, stabbing pang; but, as he left, the veil dropped again, and he let himself into the big, mute house, sorry that he had left it. In the same way, too, his music was in abeyance: he could not concentrate himself or find it worth while to make the effort to absorb himself in it, and he knew that short of that, there was neither profit nor pleasure for him in his piano. Everything seemed remote compared with the immediate foreground: there was a gap, a gulf between it and all the rest of the world.

His father wrote to him from time to time, laying stress on the extreme importance of all he was doing in the country, and giving no hint of his coming up to town at present. But he faintly adumbrated the time when in the natural course of events he would have to attend to his national duties in the House of Lords, and wondered whether it would not (about then) be good for his wife to have a change, and enjoy the country when the weather became more propitious. Michael, with an excusable unfilialness, did not answer these amazing epistles; but, having basked in their unconscious humour, sent them on to Aunt Barbara. Weekly reports were sent by Lady Ashbridge's nurse to his father, and Michael had nothing whatever to add to these. His fear of him had given place to a quiet contempt, which he did not care to think about, and certainly did not care to express.

Every now and then Lady Ashbridge had what Michael thought of as a good hour or two, when she went back to her content and childlike joy in his presence, and it was clear, when presently she came downstairs as he still lingered in the garden, reading the daily paper in the sun, that one of these better intervals had visited her. She, too, it appeared, felt the waving of the magic wand of spring, and she noted the signs of it with a joy that was infinitely pathetic.

"My dear," she said, "what a beautiful morning! Is it wise to sit out of doors without your hat, Michael? Shall not I go and fetch it for you? No? Then let us sit here and talk. It is spring, is it not? Look how the birds are collecting twigs for their nests! I wonder how they know that the time has come round again. Sweet little birds! How bold and merry they are."