“Thanks very much. You needn’t bother,” interrupted Alan gruffly.
“Well, will you not be an ass?”
“I’ll try.”
“Otherwise I shall tell you what a perfect person you are.”
“Get out,” said Alan, flinging a cushion.
Michael left him and went down to the Randolph. He found Stella already dressed and waiting impatiently in the lobby for his arrival. His mother was not yet down.
“It’s all right,” he began, “I’ve destroyed the last vestige of Alan’s masculine vanity. Mother will be all right—if,” said Michael severely, pausing to relish the flavor of what might be the last occasion on which he would administer with authority a brotherly admonition. “If you don’t put on a lot of side and talk about being twenty-one in a couple of months. Do you understand?”
Stella for answer flung her arms round his neck, and Michael grew purple under the conspicuous affront she had put upon his dignity.
“You absurd piece of pomposity,” she said. “I really adore you.”
“For God’s sake don’t talk in that exaggerated way,” Michael muttered. “I hope you aren’t going to make a public ass of Alan like that. He’d be rather sick.”