y
which in himself was firmness, and in those who opposed him obstinacy)
Michael was his match. And the annoying thing was that, as his wife had
once told him, Michael undoubtedly inherited that quality from him. It
was as inalienable as the estates of which he had threatened to deprive
his son, and which, as he knew quite well, were absolutely entailed.
Michael, in this regard, seemed no better than a common but successful
thief. He had annexed his father's firmness, and at his death would
certainly annex all his pictures and trees and acres and the red roofs
of Ashbridge.

Michael saw the gate so imperially slammed, he heard the despairing howl
of Robin, and though he was sorry for Robin, he could not help laughing.
He remembered also a ludicrous sight he had seen at the Zoological
Gardens a few days ago: two seals, sitting bolt upright, quarrelling
with each other, and making the most absurd grimaces and noises. They
neither of them quite dared to attack the other, and so sat with their
faces close together, saying the rudest things. Aunt Barbara would
certainly have seen how inimitably his father and he had, in their
interview just now, resembled the two seals.

And then he became aware that all the time, au fond, he had thought
about nothing but Sylvia, and of Sylvia, not as the subject of quarrel,
but as just Sylvia, the singing Sylvia, with a hand on his shoulder.

The winter sun was warm on the south terrace of the house, when, an hour
later, he strolled out, according to arrangement, with his mother. It
had melted the rime of the night before that lay now on the grass in
threads of minute diamonds, though below the terrace wall, and on the
sunk rims of the empty garden beds it still persisted in outline of
white heraldry. A few monthly roses, weak, pink blossoms, weary with
the toil of keeping hope alive till the coming of spring, hung dejected
heads in the sunk garden, where the hornbeam hedge that carried its
russet leaves unfallen, shaded them from the wind. Here, too, a few
bulbs had pricked their way above ground, and stood with stout, erect
horns daintily capped with rime. All these things, which for years
had been presented to Lady Ashbridge's notice without attracting her
attention; now filled her with minute childlike pleasure; they were
discoveries as entrancing and as magical as the first finding of
the oval pieces of blue sky that a child sees one morning in a
hedge-sparrow's nest. Now that she w