It conveyed the sense that at this joyful
season a truce, probably limited in duration, and, even while it lasted,
of the nature of a strongly-armed neutrality, was proclaimed, but the
prospect was not wholly encouraging, for Lady Ashbridge added that
she hoped Michael would not "go on" vexing his father. What precisely
Michael was expected to do in order to fulfil that wish was not further
stated, but he wrote dutifully enough to say that he would come down at
Christmas.
But the letter rekindled his dormant sense of there being other people
in the world beside his immediate circle; also, indefinably, it gave
him the sense that his mother wanted him. That should be so then, and
sequentially he remembered with a pang of self-reproach that he had not
as much as indicated his presence in London to Aunt Barbara, or set eyes
on her since their meeting in August. He knew she was in London, since
he had seen her name in some paragraph in the papers not long before,
and instantly wrote to ask her to dine with him at a near date. Her
answer was characteristic.
"Of course I'll dine with you, my dear," she wrote; "it will be
delightful. And what has happened to you? Your letter actually conveyed
a sense of cordiality.
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