ted,
of the nature of a strongly-armed neutrality, was proclaimed, but the
prospect was not wholly encouraging, for Lady Ashbridge added that
she hoped Michael would not "go on" vexing his father. What precisely
Michael was expected to do in order to fulfil that wish was not further
stated, but he wrote dutifully enough to say that he would come down at
Christmas.

But the letter rekindled his dormant sense of there being other people
in the world beside his immediate circle; also, indefinably, it gave
him the sense that his mother wanted him. That should be so then, and
sequentially he remembered with a pang of self-reproach that he had not
as much as indicated his presence in London to Aunt Barbara, or set eyes
on her since their meeting in August. He knew she was in London, since
he had seen her name in some paragraph in the papers not long before,
and instantly wrote to ask her to dine with him at a near date. Her
answer was characteristic.

"Of course I'll dine with you, my dear," she wrote; "it will be
delightful. And what has happened to you? Your letter actually conveyed
a sense of cordiality. You never used to be cordial. And I wish to meet
some of your nice friends. Ask one or two, please--a prima donna of some
kind and a pianist, I think. I want them weird and original--the prima
donna with short hair, and the pianist with long. In Tony's new station
in life I never see anybody except the sort of people whom your father
likes. Are you forgiven yet, by the way?"

Michael found himself on the grin at the thought of Aunt Barbara
suddenly encountering the two magnificent Falbes (prima donna and
pianist exactly as she had desired) as representing the weird sort of
people whom she pictured his living among, and the result quite came
up to his expectations. As usual, Aunt Barbara was late, and came in
talking rapidly about the various causes that had detained her, which
her fruitful imagination had suggested to her as she dressed. In order,
perhaps, to suit herself to the circle in which she would pass the
evening, she had put on (or, rather, it looked as if her maid had thrown
at her) a very awful sort of tea-gown, brown and prickly-looking, and
adapted to Bohemian circles. She, with the same lively imagination, had
pictured Michael in a velveteen coat and soft shirt, the pianist as very
small, with spectacles and long hair, and the prima donna a full-blown
kind of barmaid with Roman pearls. . . .

"Yes, my de