“Yes, but I’m not sure that she isn’t right,” said Michael. “Oh, Doris, damn. I wish I couldn’t always see other people’s point of view.”
“Mother often has fits of violent morality,” said Doris. “And then we always catch it. But really they don’t last.”
“Doris, you don’t understand. It isn’t your mother’s disapproval I’m worrying over. It’s myself. Lily might have waited to say good-night,” Michael murmured miserably.
But straight upon his complaint he saw Lily leaning over from the landing above and blowing kisses, and he felt more calm.
“Don’t worry too much about Lily,” whispered Doris, as she held the door open for him.
“I shouldn’t, that’s all,” she said enigmatically, and closed the door very gently.
At the time Michael was not conscious of any deep impression made by the visit to Oxford for his Matriculation; he was too much worried by the puzzle of his future conduct with regard to Lily. He felt dull in the rooms where he spent two nights alone; he felt shy among the forty or fifty boys from other public-schools; he was glad to go back to London. Vaguely the tall grey tower remained in his mind, and vaguely the cool Gothic seemed to offer a shelter from the problems of behaviour, but that was all.
When he returned, the torment of Lily’s desired presence became more acute. His mother wrote to say that she would not be back for three days, and the only consolation was the hint that most probably Stella would come back with her.
Meanwhile this was Saturday, and school did not begin until Tuesday. Time after time Michael set out towards Trelawny Road; time after time he checked himself and fought his way home again. Mrs. Haden had been right; he had behaved badly. Lily was too young to bear the burden of their passionate love. And was she happy without him? Was she sighing for him? Or would she forget him and resume an existence undisturbed by him? But the thought of wasted time, of her hours again unoccupied, of her footsteps walking to places ignorant of him was intolerable.