ally.

"Michael, how can you dare to think of such trivialities when you are
standing at the edge of this terrible step?"

"Oh, I think I'm perfectly level-headed," he said, "even on the brink of
disaster."

"Such a dreadful journey from Cannes! I wish I'd come back in March as I
meant to. But Mrs. Carruthers was ill, and I couldn't very well leave
her. She's always nervous in lifts, and hates the central-heating. I did
not sleep a moment, and a most objectionable couple of Germans in the
next compartment of the wagons-lits used all the water in the
washing-place. So very annoying, for one never expects foreigners to
think about washing. Oh, yes, a dreadful night and all because of you,
and now you ask most cruelly why I don't take my things off."

"There wasn't any need for you to worry yourself," he said hotly.
"Stella had no business to scare you with her prejudices."

"Prejudices!" his mother repeated. "Prejudice is a very mild word for
what she feels about this dreadful girl you want to marry."

"But it is prejudice," Michael insisted. "She knows nothing against
her."

"She knows a great deal."

"How?" he demanded incredulously.

"You'd better read her letter to me. And I really must go and take off
these furs. It's stifling in London. So very much hotter than the
Riviera."

Mrs. Fane left him with Stella's letter.

LONG'S HOTEL,

April 9.

Darling Mother,

When you get this you must come _at once_ to London. You are the
only person who can save Michael from marrying the most impossible
creature imaginable. He had a stupid love-affair with her, when he
was eighteen, and I think she treated him badly even then--I
remember his being very upset about it in the summer before my
first concert. Apparently he rediscovered her this winter, and for
some reason or other wants to _marry_ her now. He brought her down
to Hardingham, and I saw then that she was a minx. Alan remembers
her mother as a dreadful woman who tried to make love to him.
Imagine Alan at eighteen being pursued!

Of course, I tackled Michael about her, and we had rather a row
about it. We kept her at Hardingham for a month (a fortnight by
herself), and we were bored to death by her. She had nothing to
say, and nothing to do except look at herself in the glass. I had
declared war on the marriage from the moment she left, but I had
only a fortni