He felt grateful to her for the name. When his mother no longer called her “this girl,” half his resentment fled. The situation concerned the happiness of human beings again; there were no longer prejudices or abstractions of morality to obscure it.
“Not at all, mother. I would do anything for you.”
“Except not marry her.”
“That wouldn’t be a sacrifice worth making,” he argued. “Because if I did that I should destroy myself to myself, and what was left of me wouldn’t be a complete Michael. It wouldn’t be your son.”
“Will you postpone your marriage, say for three months?”
He hesitated. How could he refuse her this?
“Not merely for your own sake,” she urged; “but for all our sakes. We shall all see things more clearly and pleasantly, perhaps, in three months’ time.”
He was conquered by the implication of justice for Lily.
“I won’t marry her for three months,” he promised.
“And you know, darling boy, the dreadful thing is that I very nearly missed the train owing to the idiocy of the head porter at the hotel.”