business about mother and ... Lord Saxby ought, I suppose, to make me
feel more of a worm than ever, but it doesn't. Ever since the first
shock, I've been feeling prouder and prouder. I can't make it out."

Then suddenly Michael flushed.

"I say, I wonder how many of our friends have known all the time? Mrs.
Carthew and Mrs. Ross both know. I feel sure by what they've said. And
yet I wonder if Mrs. Ross does know. She's so strict in her notions that
... I wonder ... and yet I suppose she isn't so strict as I thought she
was. Perhaps I was wrong."

"What are you talking about?" Stella asked.

"Oh, something that happened at Cobble Place. It's not important enough
to tell you."

"What I'm wondering," said Stella, "is what mother was like when she was
my age. She didn't say anything about her family. But I suppose we can
ask her some time. I'm really rather glad I'm not 'Lady Stella Fane.' It
would be ridiculous for a great pianist to be 'Lady Something.'"

"You wouldn't have been Lady Stella Fane," Michael contradicted. "You
would have been Lady Stella Cunningham. Cunningham was the family name.
I remember reading about it all when I was interested in Legitimists."

"What are they?" Stella asked. "The opposite of illegitimate?"

Michael explained the difference, and he was glad that the word
'illegitimate' should first occur like this. The pain of its utterance
seemed mitigated somehow by the explanation.

"It's an extraordinary thing," Michael began, "but, do you know, Stella,
that all the agony of seeing Lily flirting seems to have died away, and
I feel a sort of contempt ... for myself, I mean. Flirting sounds such a
loathsome word after what we've just listened to. Alan was right, I
believe. I shall have to tell Alan about all this. I wonder if it will
make any difference to him. But of course it won't. Nothing makes any
difference to Alan."

"It's about time I met him," said Stella.

"Why, haven't you?" Michael exclaimed. "Nor you have. Great Scott! I've
been so desperately miserable over Lily that I've never asked Alan here
once. Oh, I will, though."

"I say, oughtn't we to go up to mother?" said Stella.

"Would she like us to?" Michael wondered.

"Oh, yes, I'm sure she would."

"But I can't express what I feel," Michael complained. "And it will be
absurd to go and stand in front of her like two dummies."

"I'll say something," Stella promised; and, "Mother," she said, "come
and hear me play to yo