mother seemed to lie over him also. Once, indeed, during
the evening, when he had played for her, the veil had lifted and for the
drowsy ache he had the sunlit, stabbing pang; but, as he left, the veil
dropped again, and he let himself into the big, mute house, sorry that
he had left it. In the same way, too, his music was in abeyance: he
could not concentrate himself or find it worth while to make the effort
to absorb himself in it, and he knew that short of that, there was
neither profit nor pleasure for him in his piano. Everything seemed
remote compared with the immediate foreground: there was a gap, a gulf
between it and all the rest of the world.

His father wrote to him from time to time, laying stress on the extreme
importance of all he was doing in the country, and giving no hint of his
coming up to town at present. But he faintly adumbrated the time when
in the natural course of events he would have to attend to his national
duties in the House of Lords, and wondered whether it would not (about
then) be good for his wife to have a change, and enjoy the country
when the weather became more propitious. Michael, with an excusable
unfilialness, did not answer these amazing epistles; but, having basked
in their unconscious humour, sent them on to Aunt Barbara. Weekly
reports were sent by Lady Ashbridge's nurse to his father, and Michael
had nothing whatever to add to these. His fear of him had given place
to a quiet contempt, which he did not care to think about, and certainly
did not care to express.

Every now and then Lady Ashbridge had what Michael thought of as a good
hour or two, when she went back to her content and childlike joy in his
presence, and it was clear, when presently she came downstairs as he
still lingered in the garden, reading the daily paper in the sun, that
one of these better intervals had visited her. She, too, it appeared,
felt the waving of the magic wand of spring, and she noted the signs of
it with a joy that was infinitely pathetic.

"My dear," she said, "what a beautiful morning! Is it wise to sit out
of doors without your hat, Michael? Shall not I go and fetch it for you?
No? Then let us sit here and talk. It is spring, is it not? Look how the
birds are collecting twigs for their nests! I wonder how they know that
the time has come round again. Sweet little birds! How bold and merry
they are."

She edged her way a little nearer him, so that her shoulder leaned on
his arm.

"M