many more questions, and, as Michael noticed, often repeated a question to which she had received an answer only a few minutes before.  During dinner Michael constantly found her looking at him in a shy and eager manner, removing her gaze when she found it was observed, and when, later, after a silent cigarette with his father in the smoking-room, during which Lord Ashbridge, with some ostentation, studied an Army List, Michael went to his bedroom, he was utterly astonished, when he gave a “Come in” to a tapping at his door, to see his mother enter.  Her maid was standing behind her holding the inevitable Petsy, and she herself hovered hesitatingly in the doorway.

“I heard you come up, Michael,” she said, “and I wondered if it would annoy you if I came in to have a little talk with you.  But I won’t come in if it would annoy you.  I only thought I should like a little chat with you, quietly, secure from interruptions.”

Michael instantly got up from the chair in front of his fire, in which he had already begun to see images of Sylvia.  This intrusion of his mother’s was a thing utterly unprecedented, and somehow he at once connected its innovation with the strange manner he had remarked already.  But there was complete cordiality in his welcome, and he wheeled up a chair for her.

“But by all means come in, mother,” he said.  “I was not going to bed yet.”

Lady Ashbridge looked round for her maid.

“And will Petsy not annoy you if he sits quietly on my knee?” she asked.

“Of course not.”

Lady Ashbridge took the dog.

“There, that is nice,” she said.  “I told them to see you had a good fire on this cold night.  Has it been very cold in London?”

This question had already been asked and answered twice, now for the third time Michael admitted the severity of the weather.

“I hope you wrap up well,” she said.  “I should be sorry if you caught cold, and so, I am sure, your father would be.  I wish you could make up your mind not to vex him any more, but go back into the Guards.”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible, mother,” he said.

“Well, if it’s impossible there is no use in saying anything more about it.  But it vexed him very much.  He is still vexed with you.  I wish he was not vexed.  It is a sad thing when father and son fall out.  But you do wrap up, I hope, in the cold weather?”

Michael felt a sudden pang of anxiety and alarm.  Each separate thing that his mother said was sensible enough, but in the sum they were nonsense.

“You have been in London since September,” she went on.  “That is a long time to be in London.  Tell me about your life there.  Do you work hard?  Not too hard, I hope?”

“No! hard enough to keep me busy,” he said.

“Tell me about it all.  I am afraid I have not been a very good mother to you; I have not entered into your life enough.  I want to do so now.  But I don’t think you ever wanted to confide in me.  It is sad when sons don’t confide in their mothers.  But I daresay it was my fault, and now I know so little about you.”