of his own introspective temperament he could
not free himself from the handicap of his own sensitiveness, and, like
others, take himself for granted. He crushed his own power to please by
the weight of his judgments on himself.

"So there's another reason to complain of the irony of fate," he said.
"I don't want to marry anybody, and God knows nobody wants to marry me.
But, then, it's my duty to become the father of another Lord Ashbridge,
as if there had not been enough of them already, and his mother must
be a certain kind of girl, with whom I have nothing in common. So I
say that if only we could have changed places, you would have filled
my niche so perfectly, and I should have been free to bury myself in
Leipzig or Munich, and lived like the grub I certainly am, and have
drowned myself in a sea of music. As it is, goodness knows what my
father will say to the letter I wrote him yesterday, which he will have
received this morning. However, that will soon be patent, for I go down
there to-morrow. I wish you were coming with me. Can't you manage to for
a day or two, and help things along? Aunt Barbara will be there."

Francis consulted a small, green morocco pocket-book.

"Can't to-morrow," he said, "nor yet the day after. But perhaps I could
get a few days' leave next week."

"Next week's no use. I go to Baireuth next week."

"Baireuth? Who's Baireuth?" asked Francis.

"Oh, a man I know. His other name was Wagner, and he wrote some tunes."

Francis nodded.

"Oh, but I've heard of him," he said. "They're rather long tunes, aren't
they? At least I found them so when I went to the opera the other night.
Go on with your plans, Mike. What do you mean to do after that?"

"Go on to Munich and hear the same tunes over, again. After that I shall
come back and settle down in town and study."

"Play the piano?" asked Francis, amiably trying to enter into his
cousin's schemes.

Michael laughed.

"No doubt that will come into it," he said. "But it's rather as if
you told somebody you were a soldier, and he said: 'Oh, is that quick
march?'"

"So it is. Soldiering largely consists of quick march, especially when
it's more than usually hot."

"Well, I shall learn to play the piano," said Michael.

"But you play so rippingly already," said Francis cordially. "You played
all those songs the other night which you had never seen before. If you
can do that, there is nothing more you want to learn with the piano, is
t