at her piano, if Michael was not there to play to her, and in a thin, quavering voice sing the songs of twenty years ago.  She would listen to his playing, beating time to his music, and most of all she loved the hour when the day was drawing in, and the first shadow and flame of dusk and firelight; then, with her hand in his, sitting in her room, where they would not be interrupted, she would whisper fresh inquiries about Sylvia, offering to go herself to the girl and tell her how lovable her suitor was.  She lived in a dim, subaqueous sort of consciousness, physically quite well, and mentally serene in the knowledge that Michael was in the house, and would presently come and talk to her.

For the others it was dismal enough; this shadow, that was to her a watery sunlight, lay over them all—­this, and the further quarrel, unknown to her, between Michael and his father.  When they all met, as at meal times, there was the miserable pretence of friendliness and comfortable ease kept up, for fear of distressing Lady Ashbridge.  It was dreary work for all concerned, but, luckily, not difficult of accomplishment.  A little chatter about the weather, the merest small change of conversation, especially if that conversation was held between Michael and his father, was sufficient to wreathe her in smiles, and she would, according to habit, break in with some wrecking remark, that entailed starting this talk all afresh.  But when she left the room a glowering silence would fall; Lord Ashbridge would pick up a book or leave the room with his high-stepping walk and erect head, the picture of insulted dignity.

Of the three he was far most to be pitied, although the situation was the direct result of his own arrogance and self-importance; but arrogance and self-importance were as essential ingredients of his character as was humour of Aunt Barbara’s.  They were very awkward and tiresome qualities, but this particular Lord Ashbridge would have no existence without them.  He was deeply and mortally offended with Michael; that alone was sufficient to make a sultry and stifling atmosphere, and in addition to that he had the burden of his anxiety about his wife.  Here came an extra sting, for in common humanity he had, by appearing to be friends with Michael, to secure her serenity, and this could only be done by the continued profanation of his own highly proper and necessary attitude towards his son.  He had to address friendly words to Michael that really almost choked him; he had to practise cordiality with this wretch who wanted to marry the sister of a music-master.  Michael had pulled up all the old traditions, that carefully-tended and pompous flower-garden, as if they had been weeds, and thrown them in his father’s face.  It was indeed no wonder that, in his wife’s absence, he almost burst with indignation over the desecrated beds.  More than that, his own self-esteem was hurt by his wife’s fear of him, just as if he had been a hard and unkind husband to her, which he had not been, but merely a very self-absorbed and dominant one, while the one person who could make her quite happy was his despised son.  Michael’s person, Michael’s tastes, Michael’s whole presence and character were repugnant to him, and yet Michael had the power which, to do Lord Ashbridge justice, he would have given much to be possessed of himself, of bringing comfort and serenity to his wife.