r eagerness
to see Sylvia was only equalled by her eagerness to be agreeable to her.
He was greedy, whenever it could be done, to secure a pleasure for his
mother, and this one seemed in her present mood a perfectly safe one.
Added to that impulse, in itself sufficient, there was his own longing
to see her again, that thirst that never left him, and soon after they
had got back to Curzon Street Sylvia was with them, and, as before,
in preparation for a long visit, she had taken off her hat. To-day she
divested herself of it without any suggestion on Lady Ashbridge's part,
and this immensely pleased her.

"Look, Michael," she said. "Miss Falbe means to stop a long time. That
is sweet of her, is it not? She is not in such a hurry to get away
today. Sugar, Miss Falbe? Yes, I remember you take sugar and milk, but
no cream. Well, I do think this is nice!"

Sylvia had seen neither mother nor son for a couple of weeks, and her
eyes coming fresh to them noticed much change in them both. In Lady
Ashbridge this change, though marked, was indefinable enough: she seemed
to the girl to have somehow gone much further off than she had been
before; she had faded, become indistinct. It was evident that she found,
except when she was talking to Michael, a far greater difficulty in
expressing herself, the channels of communication, as it were, were
getting choked. . . . With Michael, the change was easily stated, he
looked terribly tired, and it was evident that the strain of these weeks
was telling heavily on him. And yet, as Sylvia noticed with a sudden
sense of personal pride in him, not one jot of his patient tenderness
for his mother was abated. Tired as he was, nervous, on edge, whenever
he dealt with her, either talking to her, or watching for any little
attention she might need, his face was alert with love. But she noticed
that when the footman brought in tea, and in arranging the cups let a
spoon slip jangling from its saucer, Michael jumped as if a bomb had
gone off, and under his breath said to the man, "You clumsy fool!"
Little as the incident was, she, knowing Michael's courtesy and
politeness, found it significant, as bearing on the evidence of his
tired face. Then, next moment his mother said something to him, and
instantly his love transformed and irradiated it.

To-day, more than ever before, Lady Ashbridge seemed to exist only
through him. As Sylvia knew, she had been for the last few weeks
constantly disagreeable to