"Ah, that is nice," she said. "It makes my loneliness fall away from me.
I am not quite alone any more. And now, if you are not tired will you
let me talk to you a little more, and learn a little more about you?"
She pulled her chair again nearer him, so that sitting there she could
clasp his arm.
"I want your happiness, dear," she said, "but there is so little now
that I can do to secure it. I must put that into other hands. You are
twenty-five, Michael; you are old enough to get married. All Combers
marry when they are twenty-five, don't they? Isn't there some girl you
would like to be yours? But you must love her, you know, you must want
her, you mustn't be able to do without her. It won't do to marry just
because you are twenty-five."
It would no more have entered into Michael's head this morning to tell
to his mother about Sylvia than to have discussed counterpoint with her.
But then this morning he had not been really aware that he had a mother.
But to tell her now was not unthinkable, but inevitable.
"Yes, there is a girl whom I can't do without," he said.
Lady Ashbridge's face lit up.
"Ah, tell me about her--tell me about her," she said. "You want her, you
can't do without her; that is the right wife for you.
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