“Dear little girl,” said Mrs. Merivale placidly. “How nice it is to see children doing things.”
“Of course she’ll be a success,” Alan vowed. “You’ve only got to look at her to see that. By gad, what an off-drive she would have had, if she’d only been a boy.”
Michael looked at Alan quickly. This was the first time he had ever heard him praise a girl of his own accord. He made up his mind to ask Stella when her concert was over how Alan had impressed her.
“Dear Michael,” said Mrs. Ross earnestly, “you must not worry about Stella. Don’t you remember how years ago I said she would be a great pianist? And you were so amusing about it, because you would insist that you didn’t like her playing.”
“Nor I did,” said Michael in laughing defence of himself at eight years old. “I used to think it was the most melancholy noise on earth. Sometimes I think so now, when Stella wraps herself up in endless scales. By Jove,” he suddenly exclaimed, “what’s the time?”
“Half-past eight nearly. Why?” Alan asked.
“I forgot to write and tell Viner to come. It’s not very late. I think I’ll go over to Notting Hill now, and ask him. I haven’t been to see him much lately, and he was always awfully decent to me.”
Mr. Viner was reading in his smoke-hung room.
“Hullo,” he said. “You’ve not been near me for almost a year.”
“I know,” said Michael apologetically. “I feel rather a brute. Some time I’ll tell you why.”