Lady Ashbridge considered this for a moment in her stunned mind.

“Dear me, Robert, I hope not,” she said.  “I do not think it the least likely that Francis would do anything of the kind.  Look, Petsy is better; she has drunk her cream and rusks quite up.  I think it was only the heat.”

He gave a little good-humoured giggle of falsetto laughter.

“I wish, Marion,” he said, “that you could manage to take your mind off your dog for a moment and attend to me.  And I must really ask you not to give your Petsy any more cream, or she will certainly be sick.”

Lady Ashbridge gave a little sigh.

“All gone, Petsy,” she said.

“I am glad it has all gone,” said he, “and we will hope it won’t return.  But about Michael now!”

Lady Ashbridge pulled herself together.

“Yes, poor Michael!” she said.  “He is coming to-night, is he not?  But just now you were speaking of Francis, and the fear of his wanting to be a dentist!”

“Well, I am now speaking of Michael’s wanting to be a musician.  Of course that is utterly out of the question.  If, as he says, he has sent in his resignation, he will just have to beg them to cancel it.  Michael seems not to have the slightest idea of the duties which his birth and position entail on him.  Unfitted for the life he now leads . . . waste of time. . . .  Instead he proposes to go to Baireuth in August, and then to settle down in London to study!”

Lady Ashbridge recollected the almanac.

“That will be in September, then,” she said.  “I do not think I was ever in London in September.  I did not know that anybody was.”

“The point, my dear, is not how or where you have been accustomed to spend your Septembers,” said her husband.  “What we are talking about is—­”

“Yes, dear, I know quite well what we are talking about,” said she.  “We are talking about Michael not studying music all September.”

Lord Ashbridge got up and began walking across the terrace opposite the tea-table with his elbows stuck out and his feet lifted rather high.

“Michael doesn’t seem to realise that he is not Tom or Dick or Harry,” said he.  “Music, indeed!  I’m musical myself; all we Combers are musical.  But Michael is my only son, and it really distresses me to see how little sense he has of his responsibilities.  Amusements are all very well; it is not that I want to cut him off his amusements, but when it comes to a career—­”

Lady Ashbridge was surreptitiously engaged in pouring out a little more cream for Petsy, and her husband, turning rather sooner than she had expected, caught her in the act.

“Do not give Petsy any more cream,” he said, with some asperity; “I absolutely forbid it.”

Lady Ashbridge quite composedly replaced the cream-jug.

“Poor Petsy!” she observed.

“I ask you to attend to me, Marion,” he said.

“But I am attending to you very well, Robert,” said she, “and I understand you perfectly.  You do not want Michael to be a musician in September and wear long hair and perhaps play at concerts.  I am sure I quite agree with you, for such a thing would be as unheard of in my family as in yours.  But how do you propose to stop it?”