“About as well as anybody,” said Prescott nervously. “Like to talk to you about him some time. Better come to dinner. Live in Albany. Have a soldier-servant and all that, you know. Must talk sometimes. Important you should know just how your affairs stand. Suppose I’m almost what you might call your guardian. Of course your mother’s a dear woman. Known her for years. Always splendid to me. But she mustn’t get too charitable.” “Do you mean to people’s failings?” Michael asked. Michael did not ask this so much because he believed that was what Prescott really meant as because he wished to encourage him to speak out clearly at once so that, when later they met again, the hard shyness of preliminary encounters would have been softened. Moreover, this empty house glinting with golden motes seemed to encourage a frankness and directness of intercourse that made absurd these roundabout postponements of actual problems. “Charitable to societies,” Prescott explained. “I don’t want her to think she’s got to endow half a dozen committees with money and occupation.” “Stella’s a little worried about mother’s charities,” Michael admitted. “Awful good sort, Stella,” Prescott jerked out. “Frightens me devilishly. Never could stand very clever people. Oh, I like them very much, but I always feel like a piece of furniture they want to move out of their way. Used to be in the Welsh Guards with your father,” he added vaguely. “Did you know my father when he first met my mother?” Michael asked directly, and by his directness tripped up Prescott into a headlong account. “Oh, yes, rather. I sent in my papers when he did. Chartered a yacht and sailed all over the Mediterranean. Good gracious, twenty years ago! How old we’re all getting. Poor old Saxby was always anxious that no kind of”—Prescott gibbed at the word for a moment or two—“no kind of slur should be attached.... I mean, for instance, Mrs. Fane might have had to meet the sort of women, you know, well, what I mean is ... there was nothing of the sort. Saxby was a Puritan, and yet he was always a rattling good sort. Only of course your mother was always cut off from women’s society. Couldn’t be helped, but I don’t want her now to overdo it. Glad she’s taken this house, though. What are you going to be?”