a bit. Even if she doesn't want you just now, when
you are there, she may get to want you when you aren't. I don't think I
should go on the mournful Byronic plan if I were you; I don't think it
would suit your style; you're too heavily built to stand leaning against
the chimney-piece, gazing at her and dishevelling your hair."

Michael could not help laughing.

"Oh, for God's sake, don't make a joke of it," he said.

"Why not? It isn't a tragedy yet. It won't be a tragedy till she marries
somebody else, or definitely says no. And until a thing is proved to be
tragic, the best way to deal with it is to treat it like a comedy
which is going to end well. It's only the second act now, you see, when
everything gets into a mess. By the merciful decrees of Providence, you
see, girls on the whole want us as much as we want them. That's what
makes it all so jolly."

Michael went down next day to Ashbridge, where Aunt Barbara and Francis
were to follow the day after, and found, after the freedom and
interests of the last six months, that the pompous formal life was more
intolerable than ever. He was clearly in disgrace still, as was made
quite clear to him by his father's icy and awful politeness when it
was necessary to speak to him, and by his utter unconsciousness of his
presence when it was not. This he had expected. Christmas had ushered
in a truce in which no guns were discharged, but remained sighted and
pointed, ready to fire.

But though there was no change in his father, his mother seemed to
Michael to be curiously altered; her mind, which, as has been already
noticed, was usually in a stunned condition, seemed to have awakened
like a child from its sleep, and to have begun vaguely crying in an
inarticulate discomfort. It was true that Petsy was no more, having
succumbed to a bilious attack of unusual severity, but a second Petsy
had already taken her place, and Lady Ashbridge sat with him--it was a
gentleman Petsy this time--in her lap as before, and occasionally shed
a tear or two over Petsy II. in memory of Petsy I. But this did not seem
to account for the wakening up of her mind and emotions into this
state of depression and anxiety. It was as if all her life she had been
quietly dozing in the sun, and that the place where she sat had passed
into the shade, and she had awoke cold and shivering from a bitter
wind. She had become far more talkative, and though she had by no
means abandoned her habit of upsettin