She wished that Sylvia could have seen him then in all the unconsciousness of what he was doing so unquestioningly, or that she could have seen him as she had with his mother during the last hour.

Lady Ashbridge had insisted on sitting close to him, and holding his hand whenever she could possess herself of it, of plying him with a hundred repeated questions, and never once had she made Michael either ridiculous or self-conscious.

And this, she reflected, went on most of the day, and for how many days it would go on, none knew.

Yet Michael could not consider even whether he could stand it; he rejected the expression as meaningless.
"And your friends ?" she said.

"Do you manage to see them ?" "Oh, yes, occasionally," said Michael.