s think first of your mother."

"You told me that before on this very path a long time ago," said
Michael thoughtfully. "I didn't understand so well why at the time. Now,
of course," he added shyly, "I understand everything. I used to wonder
what the mystery could be. I used to imagine all sorts of the most
extraordinary things. Prisons and lunatic asylums among others."

Mrs. Carthew chuckled to herself.

"It's surprising you didn't imagine a great deal more than you did.
How's Oxford?"

"Ripping," said Michael. "And so was your advice about Oxford. I've
never forgotten. It was absolutely right."

"I always am absolutely right," said Mrs. Carthew.

The wheels of the chaise were audible; and Michael must go at once.

"If I'm alive in two years, when you go down," said Mrs. Carthew, "I'd
like to give you some advice about the world. I'm even more infallible
about the world. Although I married a sailor, I'm a practical and
worldly old woman."

Michael said good-bye to all the family standing by the gate of Cobble
Place, to Mrs. Ross with the young Kenneth now in knickerbockers by her
side and soon, thought Michael, a subject fit for speculation; to
delightful May and Joan; to the smiling Carthew cook; all waving to him
in the sunlight with the trim cotoneaster behind them.

It gave Michael a consciousness of a new and most affectionate intimacy
to find his mother alone in the house in Cheyne Walk. It was scarcely
yet September, and the desolation of London all around seemed the more
sharply to intagliate upon his senses the fineness of his mother's
figure set in the frame of that sedate house. They had tea together in
her own room, and it struck him with a sudden surprise to see her once
again in black. The room with its rose du Barri and clouded pastels
sustained her beauty and to her somber attire lent a deeper poignancy;
or perhaps it was something apart from the influence of the room, this
so incontestable pathos, and was rather the effect of the imprisonment
of her elusiveness by a chain whose power Michael had not suspected.
Always, for nearly as many years as he could remember, when he had
kissed her she had seemed to evade the statement of any positive and
ordinary affection. Her personality had fluttered for a moment to his
embrace and fled more than swiftly. In one moment as Michael kissed her
now, the years were swept away, and he was sitting up for an extra half
hour at the seaside, while she with he