ng; the guests went hurrying
out; and, leaning from the windows of Two Hundred and Two, Grainger,
Lonsdale, Wedderburn, and Michael heard their footsteps clattering down
the High.

"I suppose we'd better begin sorting out our things to-morrow," said
Michael.

CHAPTER XIII

PLASHERS MEAD

Stella came back from Vienna for a month in the summer. Indeed she was
already arrived, when Michael reached Cheyne Walk. He was rather anxious
to insist directly to her that her disinclination to marry Prescott had
nothing to do with his death. Michael did not feel it would be good for
Stella at nineteen to believe to that extent in her power. One or two of
her letters had betrayed an amount of self-interest that Michael
considered unhealthy. With this idea in view, he was surprised when she
made no allusion to the subject, and resented a little that he must be
the one to lead up to it.

"Oh, don't let's talk of what happened nearly a year ago," protested
Stella.

"You were very much excited by it at the time," Michael pointed out.

"Ah, but lots of things have happened since then."

"What sort of things?"

He disapproved of the suggestion that the suicide of a lifelong friend
was a drop in the ocean of incident that swayed round Stella.

"Oh, loves and deaths and jealousies and ambitions," said she lightly.
"Things do happen in Vienna. It's much more eventful than Paris. I don't
know what made me come back to London. I'm missing so much fun."

This implication that he and his mother were dull company for her was
really rather irritating.

"You'd better go and look up some of your Bohemian friends," he advised
severely. "They're probably all hanging about Chelsea still. It's not
likely that any of them is farther on with his art than he was two years
ago. Who was that bounder you were so fond of, and that girl who
painted? Clarissa Vine, wasn't she called? What about her?"

"Poor old George," said Stella. "I really must try and get hold of him.
I haven't seen Clarie for some time. She made a fool of herself over
some man."

The result of Michael's sarcastic challenge was actually a tea-party in
the big studio at 173 Cheyne Walk, which Stella herself described as
being like turning out a lumber-room of untidy emotions.

"They're as queer as old-fashioned clothes," she said. "But rather
touching, don't you think, Michael? Though after all," she added
pensively, "I haven't gone marching at a very great pace alo