Term was nearly over. Michael had heard from Stella that she was going to spend two or three months in Germany. Her Brahms recitals, she wrote, had not been so successful as she ought to have made them. In London she was wasting time. Mother was continually wanting her to come to the theater. It seemed almost as if mother were trying to throw her in the way of marrying Prescott. He had certainly been very good, but she must retreat into Germany, and there again work hard. Would not Michael come too? Why was he so absurdly prejudiced against Germany? It was the only country in which to spend Christmas.
The more Stella praised Germany, the more Michael felt the need of going to a country as utterly different from it as possible. He did not want to spend the vacation in London. He did not want his mother to talk vaguely to him of the advantage for Stella in marrying Prescott. The idea was preposterous. He would be angry with his mother, and he would blurt out to Prescott his dislike of such a notion. He would thereby wound a man whom he admired and display himself in the light of the objectionably fraternal youth. In the dreary and wet murk of December the sun-dried volumes of Cervantes spoke to him of Spain.
Maurice Avery came up to his room, fatigued with fame and disappointed that Castleton with whom he had arranged to go to Rome had felt at the last moment he must take his mother to Bath. To him Michael proposed Spain.
“But why not Rome?” Maurice argued. “As I originally settled.”
“Not with me,” Michael pointed out. “I don’t want to go to Rome now. I always feel luxuriously that there will occur the moment in my life when I shall say, ‘I am ready to go to Rome. I must go to Rome.’ It’s a fancy of mine and nothing will induce me to spoil it by going to Rome at the wrong moment.”
Maurice grumbled at him, told him he was affected, unreasonable, and even hinted Michael ought to come to Rome simply for the fact that he himself had been balked of his intention by the absurdly filial Castleton.
“I do think mothers ought not to interfere,” Maurice protested. “My mother never interferes. Even my sisters are allowed to have their own way. Why can’t Mrs. Castleton go to Bath by herself? I’m sure Castleton overdoes this ‘duty’ pose. And now you won’t come to Rome. Well, will you come to Florence?”