“I’ve got Mrs. Gainsborough with me, that’s all. I’m not married ... or anything.”
It was absurd how eager she felt to assure Avery of this; and then in a moment the topic had been started.
“No, have you really got Mrs. Gainsborough?” he exclaimed. “Of course I’ve heard about her from Michael. Poor old Michael!”
“Why, what’s the matter?” Sylvia asked, sharply.
“Oh, he’s perfectly all right, but he’s lost to his friends. At least I suppose he is—buried in a monastery. He’s not actually a monk. I believe he’s what’s called an oblate, pursuing the Fata Morgana of faith—a sort of dream....”
“Yes, yes,” Sylvia interrupted. “I understand the allusion. You needn’t talk down to me.”
Avery blushed. The color in his cheeks made him seem very young.
“Sorry. I was thinking of somebody else for the moment. That sounds very discourteous also. I must apologize again. What’s happened to Lily Haden?”
Sylvia told him briefly the circumstances of Lily’s marriage at Rio. “Does Michael ever talk about her?” she asked.
“Oh no, never!” said Avery. “He’s engaged in saving his own soul now. That sounds malicious, but seriously I don’t think she was ever more to him than an intellectual landmark. To understand Michael’s point of view in all that business you’ve got to know that he was illegitimate. His father, Lord Saxby, had a romantic passion for the daughter of a country parson—a queer, cross-grained old scholar. You remember Arthur Lonsdale? Well, his father, Lord Cleveden, knew the whole history of the affair. Lady Saxby wouldn’t divorce him; so they were never married. I suppose Michael brooded over this and magnified his early devotion to Lily in some way or other up to a vow of reparation. I’m quite sure it was a kind of indirect compliment to his own mother. Of course it was all very youthful and foolish—and yet I don’t know....” he broke off with a sigh.