There are--other things to think about."
Aunt Barbara got up.
"Ah, tell me more about them," she said. "I want to get this nightmare
out of my head. Sylvia, now. Sylvia is a good cure for the nightmare. Is
she kind as she is fair, Michael?"
Michael was silent for a moment. Then he turned a quiet, radiant face to
her.
"I can't talk about it," he said. "I can't get accustomed to the wonder
of it."
"That will do. That's a completely satisfactory account. But go on."
Michael laughed.
"How can I?" he asked. "There's no end and no beginning. I can't 'go on'
as you order me about a thing like that. There is Sylvia; there is me."
"I must be content with that, then," she said, smiling.
"We are," said Michael.
Lady Barbara waited a moment without speaking.
"And your mother?" she asked.
He shook his head.
"She still refuses to see me," he said. "She still thinks it was I who
made the plot to take her away and shut her up. She is often angry with
me, poor darling, but--but you see it isn't she who is angry: it's just
her malady."
"Yes, my dear," said Lady Barbara. "I am so glad you see it like that."
"How else could I see it? It was my real mother whom I began to know
last Christmas, and whom I was with in town for the three months that
followed.
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