r, spoiled the dogs, and sometimes even
her daughters. She was just as willing to spoil Michael, especially when
his politeness led him into listening in shady corners of the
tennis-lawn to Mrs. Avery's adorations of Maurice. He found Godalming
oppressive with the smart suburbanity of Surrey. He disliked the
facility of life there, the facile thought, the facile comfort, the
facile conversation. Everything went along with a smoothness that suited
the civilized landscape, the conventional picturesqueness and the
tar-smeared roads. After a week Michael was summoned away by a telegram.
Without a ruse, he would never have escaped from this world of
light-green Lovat tweeds, of fashionable rusticity and carefully pressed
trousers.

"Dear Mrs. Avery," he wrote, preening himself upon the recuperative
solitude of empty Cheyne Walk whence his mother had just departed to
France. "I enjoyed my visit so much, and so much wish I had not been
called away on tiresome business. I hope the garden-party at the
Nevilles was a great success, and that the High Towers croquet pair
distinguished themselves. Please remember me to Mr. Avery."

"Thank Heaven that's done!" he sighed, and lazily turned the pages of
Bradshaw to discover how to reach Wedderburn in the depths of South
Wales.

The vacation went by very quickly with quiet intervals in London between
his visits, of which he enjoyed most the fortnight at Cressingham
Hall--a great Palladian house in the heart of the broad Midlands. It was
mid-August with neither shooting nor golf to disturb the pastoral calm.
Lonsdale was trying under Lord Cleveden's remonstrances to obtain a
grasp of rural administration. So he and his sister Sylvia with Michael
drove every day in a high dogcart to various outlying farms of the
estate. Lonsdale managed to make himself very popular, and after all as
he confided to Michael that was the main thing.

"And how's his lordship, sir?" the tenant would inquire.

"Oh, very fit," Lonsdale would reply. "I say, Mr. Hoggins, have you got
any of that home-brewed beer on draught? My friend Mr. Fane has heard a
good deal about it."

In a cool farm-parlor Lonsdale and Michael would toast the health of
agriculture and drink damnation to all Radicals, while outside in the
sun were Sylvia with Mrs. Hoggins, looking at the housewife's
raspberries and gooseberries.

"I envy your life," said Michael.

"A bit on the slow side, don't you think?"

"Plenty of time for t