“Alan, who are these mysterious creatures that come down for cocoa at ten?” asked Michael. “And why am I never allowed to meet them?”
“They’d bore you rather,” said Alan. “They’re people who live on this staircase. I don’t see them any other time.”
Michael thought Alan would be embarrassed if he insisted on staying, so to his friend’s evident relief he got up to go.
“You House men are like a lot of old bachelors with your fads and regularities,” he grumbled.
“Stay, if you like,” said Alan, not very heartily. “But I warn you they’re all awfully dull, and I’ve made a rule to go to bed at half-past ten this term.”
“So long,” said Michael hurriedly, and vanished.
A few days later Michael had an answer from his mother to his invitation for Eights Week:
173 CHEYNE WALK,
S.W.
May 5.
My dearest Michael,
I wish you’d asked me sooner. Now I have made arrangements to help at the Italian Peasant Jewelry Stall in this big bazaar at Westminster Hall for the Society for the Improvement of the Condition of Agricultural Laborers all over the world. I think you’d be interested. It’s all about handicrafts. Weren’t you reading a book by William Morris the other day? His name is mentioned a great deal always. I’ve been meeting so many interesting people. If Stella comes, why not ask Mrs. Ross to chaperone her? Such a capital idea. And do be nice about poor Dick Prescott. Stella is so young and impulsive. I wish she could understand how much much happier she would be married to a nice man, even though he may be a little older than herself. This tearing all over Europe cannot be good for her. And now she talks of going to Vienna and studying under somebody with a perfectly impossible name beginning with L. Not only that, but she also talks of unlearning all she has learned and beginning all over again. This is most absurd, and I’ve tried to explain to her. She should have thought of this man beginning with L before. At her age to start scales and exercises again does seem ridiculous. I really dread Stella’s coming of age. Who knows what she may not take it into her head to do? I can’t think where she gets this curious vein of eccentricity. I’ll write to Mrs. Ross if you like. Stella, of course, says she can go to Oxford by herself, but that I will not hear of, and I beg you not to encourage the idea, if she suggests it to you.