onfirmed when he is fifteen. It's part
of the family plan, and the Medes and Persians aren't in it when the
family plan is in question. Then, again, the lucky young woman has to be
suitable; that is to say, she must be what my father calls 'one of us.'
How I loathe that phrase! So my mother has a list of the suitable, and
they come down to Ashbridge in gloomy succession, and she and I are
sent out to play golf together or go on the river. And when, to our
unutterable relief, that is over, we hurry back to the house, and I
escape to my piano, and she goes and flirts with you, if you are there.
Don't deny it. And then another one comes, and she is drearier than the
last--at least, I am."

Francis lay back and laughed at this dismal picture of the rejection of
the fittest.

"But you're so confoundedly hard to please, Mike," he said. "There was
an awfully nice girl down at Ashbridge at Easter when I was there, who
was simply pining to take you. I've forgotten her name."

Michael clicked his fingers in a summary manner.

"There you are!" he said. "You and she flirted all the time, and three
months afterwards you don't even remember her name. If you had only been
me, you would have married her. As it was, she and I bored each other
stiff. There's an irony for you! But as for pining, I ask you whether
any girl in her senses could pine for me. Look at me, and tell me! Or
rather, don't look at me; I can't bear to be looked at."

Here was one of Michael's morbid sensitivenesses. He seldom forgot his
own physical appearance, the fact of which was to him appalling. His
stumpy figure with its big body, his broad, blunt-featured face, his
long arms, his large hands and feet, his clumsiness in movement were to
him of the nature of a constant nightmare, and it was only with Francis
and the ease that his solitary presence gave, or when he was occupied
with music that he wholly lost his self-consciousness in this respect.
It seemed to him that he must be as repulsive to others as he was to
himself, which was a distorted view of the case. Plain without doubt he
was, and of heavy and ungainly build; but his belief in the finality of
his uncouthness was morbid and imaginary, and half his inability to get
on with his fellows, no less than with the maidens who were brought
down in single file to Ashbridge, was due to this. He knew very well
how light-heartedly they escaped to the geniality and attractiveness of
Francis, and in the clutch