Michael followed her drearily along the gravel path.
“We shall be having the snowdrops before we know where we are,” Mrs. Gainsborough said.
“Very soon,” he agreed. He would have assented if she had foretold begonias to-morrow morning.
In the sitting-room Michael saw Sylvia’s note, a bleak little envelope waiting for him on that table-cloth. Mrs. Gainsborough left him to read it alone. The old silence of the room haunted him again now, the silence that was so much intensified by the canary hopping about his cage. Almost he decided to throw the letter unread into the fire.
From every corner of the room the message of Sylvia’s hostility was stretching out toward him. “Sweet,” said the canary. Michael tore open the envelope and read:
Perhaps you’ll admit that my influence is as strong as yours. You’d much better give her up. In a way, I’m rather sorry for you, but not enough to make me hand over Lily to you. Do realize, my dear young thing, that you aren’t even beginning to understand women. I admit that there’s precious little to understand in Lily. And for that very reason, when even you begin to see through her beauty, you’ll hate her. Now I hate to think of this happening. She’s a thousand times better off with me than she ever could be with you. Perhaps my maternal instinct has gone off the lines a bit and fixed itself on Lily. And yet I don’t think it’s anything so sickly as sentimental mothering. No, I believe I just like to sit and look at her. Lily’s rather cross with me for taking her away from “such a nice boy.” Does that please you? And doesn’t it exactly describe you? However, I won’t crow. Don’t break the lusters, when you read this. They belong to Fatty. What I suggest for you is a walk in Kensington Gardens to the refrain of “Blast the whole bloody world!” Now look shocked, my little Vandyck.
S. S.
Michael tore the letter up. He did not want to read and re-read it for the rest of the day. His eyelids were pricking unpleasantly, and he went out to find Mrs. Gainsborough. He was really sensitive that even a room should witness such a discomfiture. The landlady was downstairs in the kitchen, where he had not yet been. In this room of copper pots and pans, with only the garden in view, she might have been a farmer’s wife.
“Sit down,” she said. “And make yourself at home.”
“Will you sit down?” Michael asked.