She turned round and faced him directly.

“Finally, don’t be so cross, my dear,” she said.

“But am I?” asked he.

“Yes.  You don’t know it, or else probably, since you are a very decent fellow, you wouldn’t be.  You expect not to be liked, and that is cross of you.  A good-humoured person expects to be liked, and almost always is.  You expect not to be understood, and that’s dreadfully cross.  You think your father doesn’t understand you; no more he does, but don’t go on thinking about it.  You think it is a great bore to be your father’s only son, and wish Francis was instead.  That’s cross; you may think it’s fine, but it isn’t, and it is also ungrateful.  You can have great fun if you will only be good-tempered!”

“How did you know that—­about Francis, I mean?” asked Michael.

“Does it happen to be true?  Of course it does.  Every cross young man wishes he was somebody else.”

“No, not quite that,” began Michael.

“Don’t interrupt.  It is sufficiently accurate.  And you think about your appearance, my dear.  It will do quite well.  You might have had two noses, or only one eye, whereas you have two rather jolly ones.  And do try to see the joke in other people, Michael.  You didn’t see the joke in your interview last night with your father.  It must have been excruciatingly funny.  I don’t say it wasn’t sad and serious as well.  But it was funny too; there were points.”

Michael shook his head.

“I didn’t see them,” he said.

“But I should have, and I should have been right.  All dignity is funny, simply because it is sham.  When dignity is real, you don’t know it’s dignity.  But your father knew he was being dignified, and you knew you were being dignified.  My dear, what a pair of you!”

Michael frowned.

“But is nothing serious, then?” he asked.  “Surely it was serious enough last night.  There was I in rank rebellion to my father, and it vexed him horribly; it did more, it grieved him.”

She laid her hand on Michael’s knee.

“As if I didn’t know that!” she said.  “We’re all sorry for that, though I should have been much sorrier if you had given in and ceased to vex him.  But there it is!  Accept that, and then, my dear, swiftly apply yourself to perceive the humour of it.  And now, about your plans!”

“I shall go to Baireuth on Wednesday, and then on to Munich,” began Michael.

“That, of course.  Perhaps you may find the humour of a Channel crossing.  I look for it in vain.  Yet I don’t know. . . .  The man who puts on a yachting-cap, and asks if there’s a bit of a sea on.  It proves to be the case, and he is excessively unwell.  I must look out for him next time I cross.  And then?”

“Then I shall settle in town and study.  Oh, here’s my father coming home.”