g any conversation by the extreme
obviousness of her remarks, she asked many more questions, and, as
Michael noticed, often repeated a question to which she had received an
answer only a few minutes before. During dinner Michael constantly found
her looking at him in a shy and eager manner, removing her gaze when she
found it was observed, and when, later, after a silent cigarette with
his father in the smoking-room, during which Lord Ashbridge, with some
ostentation, studied an Army List, Michael went to his bedroom, he was
utterly astonished, when he gave a "Come in" to a tapping at his door,
to see his mother enter. Her maid was standing behind her holding the
inevitable Petsy, and she herself hovered hesitatingly in the doorway.

"I heard you come up, Michael," she said, "and I wondered if it would
annoy you if I came in to have a little talk with you. But I won't come
in if it would annoy you. I only thought I should like a little chat
with you, quietly, secure from interruptions."

Michael instantly got up from the chair in front of his fire, in which
he had already begun to see images of Sylvia. This intrusion of his
mother's was a thing utterly unprecedented, and somehow he at once
connected its innovation with the strange manner he had remarked
already. But there was complete cordiality in his welcome, and he
wheeled up a chair for her.

"But by all means come in, mother," he said. "I was not going to bed
yet."

Lady Ashbridge looked round for her maid.

"And will Petsy not annoy you if he sits quietly on my knee?" she asked.

"Of course not."

Lady Ashbridge took the dog.

"There, that is nice," she said. "I told them to see you had a good fire
on this cold night. Has it been very cold in London?"

This question had already been asked and answered twice, now for the
third time Michael admitted the severity of the weather.

"I hope you wrap up well," she said. "I should be sorry if you caught
cold, and so, I am sure, your father would be. I wish you could make up
your mind not to vex him any more, but go back into the Guards."

"I'm afraid that's impossible, mother," he said.

"Well, if it's impossible there is no use in saying anything more about
it. But it vexed him very much. He is still vexed with you. I wish he
was not vexed. It is a sad thing when father and son fall out. But you
do wrap up, I hope, in the cold weather?"

Michael felt a sudden pang of anxiety and alarm. Each separate thing