Sinister Street

Yet every day when Michael sat down to write to Lily, he almost wrote to say he was coming to London as soon as his letter. Her letters to him, written in a sprawling girlish hand, were always very much alike.

1 ARARAT HOUSE,

ISLAND ROAD, W.

My dear,

Come back soon. I'm getting bored. Miss Harper isn't bad. Can't write a long letter because this nib is awful. Kisses.

Your loving

Lily.

This would stand for any of them.

May month had come in: Michael and Kenneth were finding whitethroats'

nests in the nettle-beds of the paddock, before a word to Mrs. Ross was said about the marriage.

"Stella has written to me about it," she told him.

They were sitting in the straggling wind-frayed orchard beyond the stream: lamps were leaping: apple-blossom stippled the gra.s.s: Kenneth was chasing Orange Tips up the slope toward Grogg's Folly.

"Stella has been very busy all round," said Michael. "I suppose according to her I'm going to marry an impossible creature. Creature is as far as she usually gets in particular description of Lily."

"She certainly wasn't very complimentary about your choice," Mrs. Ross admitted.

"I wish somebody could understand that it doesn't necessarily mean that I'm mad because I'm going to marry a beautiful girl who isn't very clever."

"But I gathered from Stella," Mrs. Ross said, "that her past...

Michael, you must be very tolerant of me if I upset you, because we happen to be sitting just where I was stupid and unsympathetic once before. You see what an impression that made on me. I actually remember the very place."

"She probably has done things in the past," said Michael. "But she's scarcely twenty-three yet, and I love her. Her past becomes a trifle.

Besides, I was in love with her six years ago, and I--well, six years ago I was rather thoughtless very often. I don't want you to think that I'm going to marry her now from any sense of duty. I love her. At the same time when people argue that she's not the correct young Miss they apparently expect me to marry, I'm left unmoved. Pasts belong to men as well as to women."

Mrs. Ross nodded slowly. Kenneth came rus.h.i.+ng up, shouting that he had caught a frightfully rare b.u.t.terfly.

"A female Orange Tip," was the verdict.

"But isn't that frightfully rare?"

Michael shook his head.

"No rarer than the males; but you don't notice them, that's all."

Kenneth retired to find some more.

"And you're sure you'll be happy with her?" Mrs. Ross asked.

"As sure as I am that I shall be happy with anybody. I ought to be married to her by now. This delay that I've so weakly allowed isn't going to effect much."

Michael sighed. He had meant to be in Provence this month of May.

"But the delay can't do any harm," Mrs. Ross pointed out. "At any rate, it will enable you to feel more sure of yourself, and more sure of her, too."

"I don't know," said Michael doubtfully. "My theory has always been that if a thing's worth doing at all, it's worth doing at once."

"And after you're married," she asked, "what are you going to do? Just lead a lazy life?"

"Oh, no; I suppose I shall find some occupation that will keep me out of mischief."

"That sounds a little cynical. Ah, well, I suppose it is a disappointment to me."

"What's a disappointment?"

"I've hoped and prayed so much lately that you would have a vocation...."

"A priest," he interrupted quickly, "It's no good, Mrs. Ross. I have thought of being one, but I'm always put off by the professional side of it. And there are ways of doing what a priest does without being one."

"Of course, I can't agree with you there," she said.

"Well, apart from the sacraments, I mean. Lately I've seen something of the underworld, and I shall think of some way of being useful down there. Already I believe I've done a bit."

They talked of the problems of the underworld and Michael was encouraged by what he fancied was a much greater breadth in her point of view nowadays to speak of things that formerly would have made her gray eyes harden in fastidious disapproval.

"I feel happier about you since this talk," she said. "As long as you won't be content to let your great gift of humanity be wasted, as long as you won't be content to think that in marrying your Lily you have done with all your obligations."

"Oh, no, I shan't feel that. In fact, I shall be all the more anxious to justify myself."

Kenneth came back to importune Michael for a walk as far as Grogg's Folly.

"It's such fun for Kenneth to have you here!" Mrs. Ross exclaimed. "I've never seen him so boisterously happy."

"I used to enjoy myself here just as much as he does," said Michael.

"Though perhaps I didn't show it. I always think of myself as rather a dreary little beast when I was a kid."

"On the contrary, you were a most attractive boy; such a wide-eyed little boy," said Mrs. Ross softly, looking back into time. "I've seldom seen you so happy as just before I blew out your candle the first night of your first stay here."

"I say, do come up the hill," interrupted Kenneth despairingly.

"A thousand apologies, my lord," said Michael. "We'll go now."

They did not stop until they reached the tower on the summit.

"When I was your age," Michael told him, "I used to think that I could see the whole of England from here."

"Could you really?" said Kenneth, in admiration. "Could you see any of France, too?"

"I expect so," Michael answered. "I expect really I thought I could see the whole world. Kenneth, what are you going to be when you grow up? A soldier?"