On the afternoon of the day following Christmas the two cousins had been across the estuary to Ashbridge together.  Francis, who, in spite of his habitual easiness of disposition and general good temper, had found the conditions of anger and anxiety quite intolerable, had settled to leave next day, instead of stopping till the end of the week, and Michael acquiesced in this without any sense of desertion; he had really only wondered why Francis had stopped three nights, instead of finding urgent private business in town after one.  He realised also, somewhat with surprise, that Francis was “no good” when there was trouble about; there was no one so delightful when there was, so to speak, a contest of who should enjoy himself the most, and Francis invariably won.  But if the subject of the contest was changed, and the prize given for the individual who, under depressing circumstances, should contrive to show the greatest serenity of aspect, Francis would have lost with an even greater margin.  Michael, in fact, was rather relieved than otherwise at his cousin’s immediate departure, for it helped nobody to see the martyred St. Sebastian, and it was merely odious for St. Sebastian himself.  In fact, at this moment, when Michael was rowing them back across the full-flooded estuary, Francis was explaining this with his customary lucidity.

“I don’t do any good here, Mike,” he said.  “Uncle Robert doesn’t speak to me any more than he does to you, except when Aunt Marion is there.  And there’s nothing going on, is there?  I practically asked if I might go duck-shooting to-day, and Uncle Robert merely looked out of the window.  But if anybody, specially you, wanted me to stop, why, of course I would.”

“But I don’t,” said Michael.

“Thanks awfully.  Gosh, look at those ducks!  They’re just wanting to be shot.  But there it is, then.  Certainly Uncle Robert doesn’t want me, nor Aunt Marion.  I say, what do they think is the matter with her?”

Michael looked round, then took, rather too late, another pull on his oars, and the boat gently grated on the pebbly mud at the side of the landing-place.  Francis’s question, the good-humoured insouciance of it grated on his mind in rather similar fashion.

“We don’t know yet,” he said.  “I expect we shall all go back to town in a couple of days, so that she may see somebody.”

Francis jumped out briskly and gracefully, and stood with his hands in his pockets while Michael pushed off again, and brought the boat into its shed.

“I do hope it’s nothing serious,” he said.  “She looks quite well, doesn’t she?  I daresay it’s nothing; but she’s been alone, hasn’t she, with Uncle Robert all these weeks.  That would give her the hump, too.”

Michael felt a sudden spasm of impatience at these elegant and consoling reflections.  But now, in the light of his own increasing maturity, he saw how hopeless it was to feel Francis’s deficiencies, his entire lack of deep feeling.  He was made like that; and if you were fond of anybody the only possible way of living up to your affection was to attach yourself to their qualities.