And so it was with the listless August people drooping on the Embankment, the oily river and a lack-luster moon.
Michael was surprised at such a season to get a telegram from Prescott, inviting him to dine at the Albany. His host was jaded by the hot London weather, and the soldier-servant waited upon him with more solicitude than usual. Prescott and Michael talked of the commonplace for some time, or rather Michael talked away rather anxiously while Prescott lent him a grave attention. At last Michael’s conversation exhausted itself, and for a few minutes there was silence, while Prescott betrayed his nervousness by fidgeting with the ash on his cigar. At last he burnt himself and throwing away the cigar leaped forthwith into the tide of emotion that was deepening rapidly around his solitary figure.
“Daresay your mother told you I wanted to marry Stella. Daresay Stella told you. Of course, I realize it’s quite absurd. Said so at once, and of course it’s all over now. Phew! it’s fearfully hot to-night. Always feel curiously stranded in London in August, but I suppose that’s the same with most people.”
Michael had an impulse to ask Prescott to come away with him, but the moment for doing so vanished in the shyness it begot, and a moment later the impulse seemed awkwardly officious. Yet by Prescott’s confidence Michael felt himself committed to a participation in his existence that called for some response. But he could not with any sincerity express a regret for Stella’s point of view.
“Mother was very anxious she should accept you,” said Michael, and immediately he had a vision of Prescott like the puppet of an eighteenth-century novelist kneeling to receive Stella’s stilted declaration of her refusal.
“Your mother was most extraordinarily gracious and sympathetic. But of course I’m a man of fifty. I suppose you thought the idea very ridiculous.”
“I don’t think Stella is old enough to marry,” said Michael.
“But don’t you think it’s better for girls to marry when they’re young?” asked Prescott, and as he leaned forward, Michael saw his eyes were very bright and his actions feverish. “I’ve noticed that tendencies recur in families. Time after time. I don’t like this Viennese business, yet if Stella had married me I shouldn’t have interfered with her,” he added, with a wistfulness that was out of keeping with his severely conventional appearance. “Still, I should have always been in the background.”