spect so much as the Emperor
doesn't feel as I do about it, but that doesn't alter my view."

"I understand," said Michael.

"The next is about your mother," he said. "Do you notice any change in
her?"

"Yes," said Michael.

"Can you describe it at all?"

Michael hesitated.

"She shows quite a new affection for myself," he said. "She came and
talked to me last night in a way she had never done before."

The irritation which Michael's mere presence produced on his father
was beginning to make itself felt. The fact that Michael was squat and
long-armed and ugly had always a side-blow to deal at Lord Ashbridge
in the reminder that he was his father. He tried to disregard this--he
tried to bring his mind into an impartial attitude, without seeing for
a moment the bitter irony of considering impartiality the ideal
quality when dealing with his son. He tried to be fair, and Michael was
perfectly conscious of the effort it cost him.

"I had noticed something of the sort," he said. "Your mother was always
asking after you. You have not been writing very regularly, Michael. We
know little about your life."

"I have written to my mother every week," said Michael.

The magical effects of the Emperor's interest were dying out. Lord
Ashbridge became more keenly aware of the disappointment that Michael
was to him.

"I have not been so fortunate, then," he said.

Michael remembered his mother's anxious face, but he could not let this
pass.

"No, sir," he said, "but you never answered any of my letters. I thought
it quite probable that it displeased you to hear from me."

"I should have expressed my displeasure if I had felt it," said his
father with all the pomposity that was natural to him.

"That had not occurred to me," said Michael. "I am afraid I took your
silence to mean that my letters didn't interest you."

He paused a moment, and his rebellion against the whole of his father's
attitude flared up.

"Besides, I had nothing particular to say," he said. "My life is passed
in the pursuit of which you entirely disapprove."

He felt himself back in boyhood again with this stifling and leaden
atmosphere of authority and disapproval to breathe. He knew that Francis
in his place would have done somehow differently; he could almost
hear Aunt Barbara laughing at the pomposity of the situation that had
suddenly erected itself monstrously in front of him. The fact that he
was Michael Comber vexed his father--there w