This time the gladness faded from her.
“Oh, my dear, it will vex your father again,” she said, “that you should want to marry the sister of a music-teacher. It will never do to vex him again. Is she not a lady?”
Michael laughed.
“But certainly she is,” he said. “Her father was German, her mother was a Tracy, just as well-born as you or I.”
“How odd, then, that her brother should have taken to giving music lessons. That does not sound good. Perhaps they are poor, and certainly there is no disgrace in being poor. And what is her name?”
“Sylvia,” said Michael. “You have probably heard of her; she is the Miss Falbe who made such a sensation in London last season by her singing.”
The old outlook, the old traditions were beginning to come to the surface again in poor Lady Ashbridge’s mind.
“Oh, my dear!” she said. “A singer! That would vex your father terribly. Fancy the daughter of a Miss Tracy becoming a singer. And yet you want her—that seems to me to matter most of all.”
Then came a step at the door; it opened an inch or two, and Michael heard his father’s voice.
“Is your mother with you, Michael?” he asked.