Michael made a resolution to watch his sister’s behaviour when she came back to London next year to make her first public appearance at a concert. For the moment, feeling overmatched, he changed the trend of his reproof. “Well, even if you do talk about people not being married, I think it’s rotten to talk about mother like that.” “You stupid old thing, as if I should do it with anyone but you, and I only talked about her to you because you look so sort of cosy and confidential in these ferns.” “They’re not ferns—they’re bracken. If I thought such a thing was possible,” declared Michael, “I believe I’d go mad. I don’t think I could ever again speak to anybody I knew.” “Why not, if they didn’t know?” “How like a girl! Stella, you make me feel uncomfortable, you do really.” Stella stretched her full length in the luxurious greenery. “Well, mother never seems unhappy.” “Exactly,” said Michael eagerly. “Therefore, what you think can’t possibly be true. If it were, she’d always look miserable.” “Well, then who _was_ our father?” “Don’t ask me,” said Michael gloomily. “I believe he’s in prison—or perhaps he’s in an asylum, or deformed.” Stella shuddered. “Michael, what a perfectly horrible idea. Deformed!” “Well, wouldn’t you sooner he were deformed than that you were—than that—than the other idea?” Michael stammered. “No, I wouldn’t,” Stella cried. “I’d much, much, much rather that mother was never married.” Michael tried to drag his mind towards the comprehension of this unnatural sentiment, but the longer he regarded it the worse it seemed, and with intense irony he observed to Stella: “I suppose you’ll be telling me next that you’re in love.” “I’m not in love just at the moment,” said Stella blandly. “Do you mean to say you have been in love?” “A good deal,” she admitted. Michael leaped to his feet, and looked down on her recumbent in the bracken. “But only in a stupid schoolgirly way?” he gasped. “Yes, I suppose it was,” Stella paused. “But it was fearfully thrilling all the same—especially in duets.” “Duets?” “I used to read ahead, and watch where our hands would come together, and then the notes used to get quite slippery with excitement.” “Look here,” Michael demanded, drawing himself up, “are you trying to be funny?” “No,” Stella declared, rising to confront Michael. “He was one of my masters. He was only about thirty, and he was killed in Switzerland by an avalanche.” Michael was staggered by the confession of this shocking and precocious child, as one after another his chimeras rose up to leer at him triumphantly. “And did he make love to you? Did he try to kiss you?” Michael choked out. “Oh, no,” said Stella. “That would have spoilt it all.” Michael sighed under a faint lightening of his load, and Stella came up to him engagingly to slip her arm into his.