It was for Michael a nervous evening. He was perpetually on guard for hostile criticism; he was terribly anxious that Lily should make a good impression. Everything seemed to go wrong. Games were begun and ended almost in the same breath. Finally he managed to find a song that Lily thought she remembered, and Stella played her accompaniment very aggressively, Michael fancied; for by this time he regarded the slightest movement on her part or Alan’s as an implication of disapproval. Lily was tired, luckily, and was ready to go to bed early.
When Stella came down again, Michael felt he ought to supplement the few details of his telegram, and it began to seem almost impossible to explain reasonably his arrival here with Lily. An account of Tinderbox Lane would sound fantastic: a hint of Lily’s life would be fatal. He found himself enmeshed in a vague tale of having found her very hard up and of wishing to get her away from the influence of a rather depressing home. It sounded very unconvincing as he told it, but he hoped that the declaration of his intention to marry her at once would smother everything else in a great surprise.
“Of course, that’s what I imagined you were thinking of doing,” said Stella. “So you’ve made up your quarrel of five years ago?”
“When are you going to get married?” Alan asked.
“Well, I hoped you’d be able to have us here for a week or so, or at any rate Lily, while I go up to town and find a place for us to live.”
“Oh, of course she can stay here,” said Stella.
“Oh, rather, of course,” Alan echoed.
Next morning it rained hard, and Michael thought he saw Stella making signs of dissent when at breakfast Alan proposed taking him over to a farm a couple of miles away. He was furious to think that Stella was objecting to being left alone with Lily, and he retired to the billiard-room, where he spent half an hour playing a game with himself between spot and plain, a game which produced long breaks that seemed quite unremarkable, so profound was the trance of vexation in which he was plunged.
A fortnight passed, through the whole of which Alan never once referred to Lily; and, as Michael was always too proud to make the first advance toward the topic, he felt that his friendship with Alan was being slowly chipped away. He knew that Stella, on the other hand, was rather anxious to talk to him, but perversely he avoided giving her any opportunity. As for Lily, she seemed perfectly happy doing nothing and saying very little. Obviously, however, this sort of existence under the shadow of disapproval could not continue much longer, and Michael determined to come to grips with the situation. Therefore, one morning of strong easterly wind when Lily wanted to stay indoors, he proposed a walk to Stella.
They crossed three or four fields in complete silence, the dogs scampering to right and left, the gale crimsoning their cheeks.