“Yes, darling, we’ll never speak of it again,” he said.  “That would be much wisest.”

Lady Ashbridge’s funeral took place three days afterwards, down in Suffolk, and those hours detached themselves in Michael’s mind from all that had gone before, and all that might follow, like a little piece of blue sky in the midst of storm clouds.  The limitations of man’s consciousness, which forbid him to think poignantly about two things at once, hedged that day in with an impenetrable barrier, so that while it lasted, and afterwards for ever in memory, it was unflecked by trouble or anxiety, and hung between heaven and earth in a serenity of its own.

The coffin lay that night in his mother’s bedroom, which was next to Michael’s, and when he went up to bed he found himself listening for any sound that came from there.  It seemed but yesterday when he had gone rather early upstairs, and after sitting a minute or two in front of his fire, had heard that timid knock on the door, which had meant the opening of a mother’s heart to him.  He felt it would scarcely be strange if that knock came again, and if she entered once more to be with him.  From the moment he came upstairs, the rest of the world was shut down to him; he entered his bedroom as if he entered a sanctuary that was scented with the incense of her love.  He knew exactly how her knock had sounded when she came in here that night when first it burned for him:  his ears were alert for it to come again.  Once his blind tapped against the frame of his open window, and, though knowing it was that, he heard himself whisper—­for she could hear his whisper—­“Come in, mother,” and sat up in his deep chair, looking towards the door.  But only the blind tapped again, and outside in the moonlit dusk an owl hooted.

He remembered she liked owls.  Once, when they lived alone in Curzon Street, some noise outside reminded her of the owls that hooted at Ashbridge—­she had imitated their note, saying it sounded like sleep. . . .  She had sat in a chintz-covered chair close to him when at Christmas she paid him that visit, and now he again drew it close to his own, and laid his hand on its arm.  Petsy II. had come in with her, and she had hoped that he would not annoy Michael.

There were steps in the passage outside his room, and he heard a little shrill bark.  He opened his door and found his mother’s maid there, trying to entice Petsy away from the room next to his.  The little dog was curled up against it, and now and then he turned round scratching at it, asking to enter.  “He won’t come away, my lord,” said the maid; “he’s gone back a dozen times to the door.”

Michael bent down.

“Come, Petsy,” he said, “come to bed in my room.”

The dog looked at him for a moment as if weighing his trustworthiness.  Then he got up and, with grotesque Chinese high-stepping walk, came to him.

“He’ll be all right with me,” he said to the maid.