“But an Admiralty boat wouldn’t have run away,” he said.  “They’d have asked us who the devil we were.”

“But who else was it?” asked Francis.

Michael mopped his forehead.

“Aunt Barbara would tell you,” he said.  “She would tell you that they were German spies.”

Francis laughed.

“Or Timbuctoo niggers,” he remarked.

“And that would be an odd thing, too,” said Michael.

But at that moment he felt the first chill of the shadow that menaced, if by chance Aunt Barbara was right, and if already the clear tranquillity of the sky was growing dim as with the mist that lay that afternoon on the waters of the deep reach, and covered mysterious movements which were going on below it.  England and Germany—­there was so much of his life and his heart there.  Music and song, and Sylvia.

CHAPTER X

Michael had heard the verdict of the brain specialist, who yesterday had seen his mother, and was sitting in his room beside his unopened piano quietly assimilating it, and, without making plans of his own initiative, contemplating the forms into which the future was beginning to fall, mapping itself out below him, outlining itself as when objects in a room, as the light of morning steals in, take shape again.  And even as they take the familiar shapes, so already he felt that he had guessed all this in that week down at Ashbridge, from which he had returned with his father and mother a couple of days before.

She was suffering, without doubt, from some softening of the brain; nothing of remedial nature could possibly be done to arrest or cure the progress of the disease, and all that lay in human power was to secure for her as much content and serenity as possible.  In her present condition there was no question of putting her under restraint, nor, indeed, could she be certified by any doctor as insane.  She would have to have a trained attendant, she would live a secluded life, from which must be kept as far as possible anything that could agitate or distress her, and after that there was nothing more that could be done except to wait for the inevitable development of her malady.  This might come quickly or slowly; there was no means of forecasting that, though the rapid deterioration of her brain, which had taken place during those last two months, made it, on the whole, likely that the progress of the disease would be swift.  It was quite possible, on the other hand, that it might remain stationary for months. . . .  And in answer to a question of Michael’s, Sir James had looked at him a moment in silence.  Then he answered.

“Both for her sake and for the sake of all of you,” he had said, “one hopes that it will be swift.”