'Mother,' Audrey said to her one day, 'have you forgotten what I once told you—that you are not to be so kind to me? You are spoiling me dreadfully. You give me my way in everything; and when I say anything that I ought not to say, you do not contradict me. I am growing demoralised, and it is all your and Michael's fault if I get more selfish every day.'
'You selfish, my darling?'
'Yes, selfish and stupid, and as idle as possible; and yet you never scold me or ask me to do anything for you.'
'You are always doing something, Audrey; you are busy from morning till night. Michael says you work far too hard.'
'But I must work; it is my duty to work,' she returned, a little restlessly; 'and, mother, you must help, and not spoil me. When I see you and Gage looking at me with tears in your eyes, it troubles me to see them. I want you to be happy. I want everything to go on as usual, and I mean to be happy, too.'
And then she went away and gave Mollie her music-lesson, and when it was over she went in search of Michael.
Michael knew he was necessary to her—that in certain restless moods he was able to soothe her; so he stayed manfully at his post until after Christmas.
But with the new year he resumed his Bohemian life, spending two or three weeks at South Audley Street, and then running down to Woodcote for a few days. He felt it was wiser to do so, and he could leave her more comfortably now. She was better in every way: she drooped less visibly, her smile became more frequent, and the constant society of Mollie and intercourse with her fresh girlish mind were evidently beneficial.
She would do now without him, he told himself as he went back to his lodgings, and he need no longer put such a force on himself. 'Until I can speak, until the time has come for me to open my heart to her, it is better that we should be apart.'
That Audrey held a different opinion was evident, and she could not always conceal her disappointment when Michael's brief visits became briefer and more infrequent.