She had become far more talkative, and though she had by no means abandoned her habit of upsetting any conversation by the extreme obviousness of her remarks, she asked many more questions, and, as Michael noticed, often repeated a question to which she had received an answer only a few minutes before.

During dinner Michael constantly found her looking at him in a shy and eager manner, removing her gaze when she found it was observed, and when, later, after a silent cigarette with his father in the smoking-room, during which Lord Ashbridge, with some ostentation, studied an Army List, Michael went to his bedroom, he was utterly astonished, when he gave a "Come in" to a tapping at his door, to see his mother enter.

Her maid was standing behind her holding the inevitable Petsy, and she herself hovered hesitatingly in the doorway.
"I heard you come up, Michael," she said, "and I wondered if it would annoy you if I came in to have a little talk with you.

But I won't come in if it would annoy you.

I only thought I should like a little chat with you, quietly, secure from interruptions." Michael instantly got up from the chair in front of his fire, in which he had already begun to see images of Sylvia.