Your loving
Mother.
Michael thought Mrs. Ross would solve the difficulty, and he was glad rather to relieve himself of the responsibility of his mother at Oxford. He would have had to be so steadily informative, and she would never have listened to a word. Stella’s view of the visit came soon after her mother’s.
173 CHEYNE WALK,
S.W.
May 8.
Dear M.,
What’s all this about Mrs. Ross chaperoning me at Oxford? Is it necessary? At a shot I said to mother, “No, quite unnecessary.” But of course, if I should disgrace you by coming alone, I won’t. Isn’t Mrs. Ross a little on the heavy side? I mean, wouldn’t she rather object to me smoking cigars?
“Great scott!” interjaculated Michael.
I’m going to Vienna soon to begin music all over again, so be very charming to your only sister,
Stella.
P.S.—Do crush mother over Prescott.
Michael agreed with his mother in thinking a chaperone was absolutely necessary for Stella’s visit to Oxford, and since the threat of cigars he cordially approved of the suggestion that Mrs. Ross should come. Moreover, he felt his former governess would approve of his own attitude toward Oxford, and he rather looked forward to demonstrating it to her. In the full-blooded asceticism of Oxford Michael censured his own behavior when he was seventeen and looked back with some dismay on the view of himself at that time as it appeared to him now. He was as much shocked by that period now as at school in his fifteenth year he had been shocked by the memory of the two horrid little girls at Eastbourne. Altogether this invitation seemed an admirable occasion to open the door once again to Mrs. Ross and to let her personality enter his mind as the sane adjudicator of whatever problems should soon present themselves. It would be jolly for Alan, too, if his aunt came up and saw him playing for the Varsity in whatever cricket match was provided to relieve the tedium of too much rowing.