“It’s on the same road.”

Michael got up.

“It may be,” he said, “but it strikes me it’s round the corner.  You can’t even see one from the other.”

“Possibly not.  But you never know how near the corner really is.  Go for her, Mike, full speed ahead.”

“But how?”

“Oh, there are hundreds of ways.  I’m not sure that one of the best isn’t to keep away for a bit.  Even if she doesn’t want you just now, when you are there, she may get to want you when you aren’t.  I don’t think I should go on the mournful Byronic plan if I were you; I don’t think it would suit your style; you’re too heavily built to stand leaning against the chimney-piece, gazing at her and dishevelling your hair.”

Michael could not help laughing.

“Oh, for God’s sake, don’t make a joke of it,” he said.

“Why not?  It isn’t a tragedy yet.  It won’t be a tragedy till she marries somebody else, or definitely says no.  And until a thing is proved to be tragic, the best way to deal with it is to treat it like a comedy which is going to end well.  It’s only the second act now, you see, when everything gets into a mess.  By the merciful decrees of Providence, you see, girls on the whole want us as much as we want them.  That’s what makes it all so jolly.”

Michael went down next day to Ashbridge, where Aunt Barbara and Francis were to follow the day after, and found, after the freedom and interests of the last six months, that the pompous formal life was more intolerable than ever.  He was clearly in disgrace still, as was made quite clear to him by his father’s icy and awful politeness when it was necessary to speak to him, and by his utter unconsciousness of his presence when it was not.  This he had expected.  Christmas had ushered in a truce in which no guns were discharged, but remained sighted and pointed, ready to fire.

But though there was no change in his father, his mother seemed to Michael to be curiously altered; her mind, which, as has been already noticed, was usually in a stunned condition, seemed to have awakened like a child from its sleep, and to have begun vaguely crying in an inarticulate discomfort.  It was true that Petsy was no more, having succumbed to a bilious attack of unusual severity, but a second Petsy had already taken her place, and Lady Ashbridge sat with him—­it was a gentleman Petsy this time—­in her lap as before, and occasionally shed a tear or two over Petsy II. in memory of Petsy I. But this did not seem to account for the wakening up of her mind and emotions into this state of depression and anxiety.  It was as if all her life she had been quietly dozing in the sun, and that the place where she sat had passed into the shade, and she had awoke cold and shivering from a bitter wind.  She had become far more talkative, and though she had by no means abandoned her habit of upsetting any conversation by the extreme obviousness of her remarks, she asked