It's only the second act now, you see, when
everything gets into a mess. By the merciful decrees of Providence, you
see, girls on the whole want us as much as we want them. That's what
makes it all so jolly."
Michael went down next day to Ashbridge, where Aunt Barbara and Francis
were to follow the day after, and found, after the freedom and
interests of the last six months, that the pompous formal life was more
intolerable than ever. He was clearly in disgrace still, as was made
quite clear to him by his father's icy and awful politeness when it
was necessary to speak to him, and by his utter unconsciousness of his
presence when it was not. This he had expected. Christmas had ushered
in a truce in which no guns were discharged, but remained sighted and
pointed, ready to fire.
But though there was no change in his father, his mother seemed to
Michael to be curiously altered; her mind, which, as has been already
noticed, was usually in a stunned condition, seemed to have awakened
like a child from its sleep, and to have begun vaguely crying in an
inarticulate discomfort. It was true that Petsy was no more, having
succumbed to a bilious attack of unusual severity, but a second Petsy
had already taken her place, and Lady Ashbridge sat with him--it was a
gentleman Petsy this time--in her lap as before, and occasionally shed
a tear or two over Petsy II.
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