Michael sternly demanded if she had been keeping up her music, which
made Stella dance about the studio in tempestuous mirth.

"I don't see anything to giggle at in such a question," Michael
grumbled, and simultaneously reproached himself for a method of obloquy
so cheap. "Anyway, you never talk about your music now, and whatever you
may say, you don't practice as much as you used. Why?"

For answer Stella sat down at the piano, and played over and over again
the latest popular song until Michael walked out of the studio in a
rage.

A few days later at breakfast he broached the subject of going away into
the country.

"My dear boy, I'm much too busy with the Bazaar," said Mrs. Fane.

Michael sighed.

"I don't think I can possibly get away until August, and then I've half
promised to go to Dinard with Mrs. Carruthers. She has just taken up
Mental Science--so interesting and quite different from Christian
Science."

"I hate these mock-turtle religions," said Michael savagely.

Mrs. Fane replied that Michael must learn a little toleration in very
much the same tone as she might have suggested a little Italian.

"But why don't you and Stella go away somewhere together? Stella has
been quite long enough in London for the present."

"I've got to practice hard for my next concert," said Stella, looking
coldly at her brother. "You and Michael are so funny, mother. You
grumble at me when I don't practice all day, and yet when it's really
necessary for me to work, you always suggest going away."

"I never suggested your coming away," Michael contradicted. "As a matter
of fact, I've been asked to join a reading-party in Cornwall, and I
think I'll go."

The reading-party in question consisted besides Michael of Maurice
Avery, Guy Hazlewood, Castleton, and Stewart. Bill Mowbray also joined
them for the first two days, but after receiving four wires in reference
to the political candidature of a friend in the north of England, he
decided that his presence was necessary to the triumph of Tory Democracy
and left abruptly in the middle of the night with a request to forward
his luggage when it arrived. When it did arrive, the reading-party sent
it to await at Univ Mowbray's arrival in October, arguing that such an
arrangement would save Bill and his friends much money, as he would
indubitably spend during the rest of the vacation not more than
forty-eight hours on the same spot.

The reading-party had rooms in a large fa