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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Michael, by E. F. Benson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Michael
+
+Author: E. F. Benson
+
+Release Date: May 13, 2006 [EBook #2072]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MICHAEL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+MICHAEL
+
+by E. F. Benson
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+Though there was nothing visibly graceful about Michael Comber, he
+apparently had the art of giving gracefully. He had already told his
+cousin Francis, who sat on the arm of the sofa by his table, that there
+was no earthly excuse for his having run into debt; but now when the
+moment came for giving, he wrote the cheque quickly and eagerly, as if
+thoroughly enjoying it, and passed it over to him with a smile that was
+extraordinarily pleasant.
+
+"There you are, then, Francis," he said; "and I take it from you that
+that will put you perfectly square again. You've got to write to me,
+remember, in two days' time, saying that you have paid those bills. And
+for the rest, I'm delighted that you told me about it. In fact, I should
+have been rather hurt if you hadn't."
+
+Francis apparently had the art of accepting gracefully, which is more
+difficult than the feat which Michael had so successfully accomplished.
+
+"Mike, you're a brick," he said. "But then you always are a brick.
+Thanks awfully."
+
+Michael got up, and shuffled rather than walked across the room to the
+bell by the fireplace. As long as he was sitting down his big arms and
+broad shoulders gave the impression of strength, and you would have
+expected to find when he got up that he was tall and largely made. But
+when he rose the extreme shortness of his legs manifested itself, and
+he appeared almost deformed. His hands hung nearly to his knees; he was
+heavy, short, lumpish.
+
+"But it's more blessed to give than to receive, Francis," he said. "I
+have the best of you there."
+
+"Well, it's pretty blessed to receive when you are in a tight place, as
+I was," he said, laughing. "And I am so grateful."
+
+"Yes, I know you are. And it's that which makes me feel rather cheap,
+because I don't miss what I've given you. But that's distinctly not a
+reason for your doing it again. You'll have tea, won't you?"
+
+"Why, yes," said Francis, getting up, also, and leaning his elbow on
+the chimney-piece, which was nearly on a level with the top of Michael's
+head. And if Michael had gracefulness only in the art of giving,
+Francis's gracefulness in receiving was clearly of a piece with the rest
+of him. He was tall, slim and alert, with the quick, soft movements of
+some wild animal. His face, brown with sunburn and pink with brisk-going
+blood, was exceedingly handsome in a boyish and almost effeminate
+manner, and though he was only eighteen months younger than his cousin,
+he looked as if nine or ten years might have divided their ages.
+
+"But you are a brick, Mike," he said again, laying his long, brown hand
+on his cousin's shoulder. "I can't help saying it twice."
+
+"Twice more than was necessary," said Michael, finally dismissing the
+subject.
+
+The room where they sat was in Michael's flat in Half Moon Street, and
+high up in one of those tall, discreet-looking houses. The windows were
+wide open on this hot July afternoon, and the bourdon hum of London,
+where Piccadilly poured by at the street end, came in blended and
+blunted by distance, but with the suggestion of heat, of movement, of
+hurrying affairs. The room was very empty of furniture; there was a rug
+or two on the parquet floor, a long, low bookcase taking up the end near
+the door, a table, a sofa, three or four chairs, and a piano. Everything
+was plain, but equally obviously everything was expensive, and the
+general impression given was that the owner had no desire to be
+surrounded by things he did not want, but insisted on the superlative
+quality of the things he did. The rugs, for instance, happened to be of
+silk, the bookcase happened to be Hepplewhite, the piano bore the most
+eminent of makers' names. There were three mezzotints on the walls, a
+dragon's-blood vase on the high, carved chimney-piece; the whole bore
+the unmistakable stamp of a fine, individual taste.
+
+"But there's something else I want to talk to you about, Francis," said
+Michael, as presently afterwards they sat over their tea. "I can't say
+that I exactly want your advice, but I should like your opinion. I've
+done something, in fact, without asking anybody, but now that it's done
+I should like to know what you think about it."
+
+Francis laughed.
+
+"That's you all over, Michael," he said. "You always do a thing first,
+if you really mean to do it--which I suppose is moral courage--and then
+you go anxiously round afterwards to see if other people approve,
+which I am afraid looks like moral cowardice. I go on a different
+plan altogether. I ascertain the opinion of so many people before I do
+anything that I end by forgetting what I wanted to do. At least,
+that seems a reasonable explanation for the fact that I so seldom do
+anything."
+
+Michael looked affectionately at the handsome boy who lounged
+long-legged in the chair opposite him. Like many very shy persons, he
+had one friend with whom he was completely unreserved, and that was
+this cousin of his, for whose charm and insouciant brilliance he had so
+adoring an admiration.
+
+He pointed a broad, big finger at him.
+
+"Yes, but when you are like that," he said, "you can just float along.
+Other people float you. But I should sink heavily if I did nothing. I've
+got to swim all the time."
+
+"Well, you are in the army," said Francis. "That's as much swimming as
+anyone expects of a fellow who has expectations. In fact, it's I who
+have to swim all the time, if you come to think of it. You are somebody;
+I'm not!"
+
+Michael sat up and took a cigarette.
+
+"But I'm not in the army any longer," he said. "That's just what I am
+wanting to tell you."
+
+Francis laughed.
+
+"What do you mean?" he asked. "Have you been cashiered or shot or
+something?"
+
+"I mean that I wrote and resigned my commission yesterday," said
+Michael. "If you had dined with me last night--as, by the way, you
+promised to do--I should have told you then."
+
+Francis got up and leaned against the chimney-piece. He was conscious of
+not thinking this abrupt news as important as he felt he ought to think
+it. That was characteristic of him; he floated, as Michael had lately
+told him, finding the world an extremely pleasant place, full of warm
+currents that took you gently forward without entailing the slightest
+exertion. But Michael's grave and expectant face--that Michael who had
+been so eagerly kind about meeting his debts for him--warned him that,
+however gossamer-like his own emotions were, he must attempt to ballast
+himself over this.
+
+"Are you speaking seriously?" he asked.
+
+"Quite seriously. I never did anything that was so serious."
+
+"And that is what you want my opinion about?" he asked. "If so, you
+must tell me more, Mike. I can't have an opinion unless you give me the
+reasons why you did it. The thing itself--well, the thing itself doesn't
+seem to matter so immensely. The significance of it is why you did it."
+
+Michael's big, heavy-browed face lightened a moment. "For a fellow who
+never thinks," he said, "you think uncommonly well. But the reasons are
+obvious enough. You can guess sufficient reasons to account for it."
+
+"Let's hear them anyhow," said Francis.
+
+Michael clouded again.
+
+"Surely they are obvious," he said. "No one knows better than me, unless
+it is you, that I'm not like the rest of you. My mind isn't the build of
+a guardsman's mind, any more than my unfortunate body is. Half our work,
+as you know quite well, consists in being pleasant and in liking it.
+Well, I'm not pleasant. I'm not breezy and cordial. I can't do it.
+I make a task of what is a pastime to all of you, and I only shuffle
+through my task. I'm not popular, I'm not liked. It's no earthly use
+saying I am. I don't like the life; it seems to me senseless. And those
+who live it don't like me. They think me heavy--just heavy. And I have
+enough sensitiveness to know it."
+
+Michael need not have stated his reasons, for his cousin could certainly
+have guessed them; he could, too, have confessed to the truth of them.
+Michael had not the light hand, which is so necessary when young men
+work together in a companionship of which the cordiality is an essential
+part of the work; neither had he in the social side of life that
+particular and inimitable sort of easy self-confidence which, as he had
+said just now, enables its owner to float. Except in years he was not
+young; he could not manage to be "clubable"; he was serious and awkward
+at a supper party; he was altogether without the effervescence which is
+necessary in order to avoid flatness. He did his work also in the same
+conscientious but leaden way; officers and men alike felt it. All this
+Francis knew perfectly well; but instead of acknowledging it, he tried
+quite fruitlessly to smooth it over.
+
+"Aren't you exaggerating?" he asked.
+
+Michael shook his head.
+
+"Oh, don't tone it down, Francis!" he said. "Even if I was
+exaggerating--which I don't for a moment admit--the effect on my general
+efficiency would be the same. I think what I say is true."
+
+Francis became more practical.
+
+"But you've only been in the regiment three years," he said. "It won't
+be very popular resigning after only three years."
+
+"I have nothing much to lose on the score of popularity," remarked
+Michael.
+
+There was nothing pertinent that could be consoling here.
+
+"And have you told your father?" asked Francis. "Does Uncle Robert
+know?"
+
+"Yes; I wrote to father this morning, and I'm going down to Ashbridge
+to-morrow. I shall be very sorry if he disapproves."
+
+"Then you'll be sorry," said Francis.
+
+"I know, but it won't make any difference to my action. After all, I'm
+twenty-five; if I can't begin to manage my life now, you may be sure I
+never shall. But I know I'm right. I would bet on my infallibility. At
+present I've only told you half my reasons for resigning, and already
+you agree with me."
+
+Francis did not contradict this.
+
+"Let's hear the rest, then," he said.
+
+"You shall. The rest is far more important, and rather resembles a
+sermon."
+
+Francis appropriately sat down again.
+
+"Well, it's this," said Michael. "I'm twenty-five, and it is time that
+I began trying to be what perhaps I may be able to be, instead of not
+trying very much--because it's hopeless--to be what I can't be. I'm
+going to study music. I believe that I could perhaps do something there,
+and in any case I love it more than anything else. And if you love a
+thing, you have certainly a better chance of succeeding in it than in
+something that you don't love at all. I was stuck into the army for no
+reason except that soldiering is among the few employments which it is
+considered proper for fellows in my position--good Lord! how awful it
+sounds!--proper for me to adopt. The other things that were open were
+that I should be a sailor or a member of Parliament. But the soldier was
+what father chose. I looked round the picture gallery at home the other
+day; there are twelve Lord Ashbridges in uniform. So, as I shall be
+Lord Ashbridge when father dies, I was stuck into uniform too, to be the
+ill-starred thirteenth. But what has it all come to? If you think of it,
+when did the majority of them wear their smart uniforms? Chiefly when
+they went on peaceful parades or to court balls, or to the Sir Joshua
+Reynolds of the period to be painted. They've been tin soldiers,
+Francis! You're a tin soldier, and I've just ceased to be a tin soldier.
+If there was the smallest chance of being useful in the army, by which
+I mean standing up and being shot at because I am English, I would not
+dream of throwing it up. But there's no such chance."
+
+Michael paused a moment in his sermon, and beat out the ashes from his
+pipe against the grate.
+
+"Anyhow the chance is too remote," he said. "All the nations with armies
+and navies are too much afraid of each other to do more than growl. Also
+I happen to want to do something different with my life, and you can't
+do anything unless you believe in what you are doing. I want to leave
+behind me something more than the portrait of a tin soldier in the
+dining-room at Ashbridge. After all, isn't an artistic profession
+the greatest there is? For what counts, what is of value in the
+world to-day? Greek statues, the Italian pictures, the symphonies of
+Beethoven, the plays of Shakespeare. The people who have made beautiful
+things are they who are the benefactors of mankind. At least, so the
+people who love beautiful things think."
+
+Francis glanced at his cousin. He knew this interesting vital side of
+Michael; he was aware, too, that had anybody except himself been in the
+room, Michael could not have shown it. Perhaps there might be people
+to whom he could show it but certainly they were not those among whom
+Michael's life was passed.
+
+"Go on," he said encouragingly. "You're ripping, Mike."
+
+"Well, the nuisance of it is that the things I am ripping about appear
+to father to be a sort of indoor game. It's all right to play the piano,
+if it's too wet to play golf. You can amuse yourself with painting if
+there aren't any pheasants to shoot. In fact, he will think that my
+wanting to become a musician is much the same thing as if I wanted to
+become a billiard-marker. And if he and I talked about it till we were a
+hundred years old, he could never possibly appreciate my point of view."
+
+Michael got up and began walking up and down the room with his slow,
+ponderous movement.
+
+"Francis, it's a thousand pities that you and I can't change places," he
+said. "You are exactly the son father would like to have, and I should
+so much prefer being his nephew. However, you come next; that's one
+comfort."
+
+He paused a moment.
+
+"You see, the fact is that he doesn't like me," he said. "He has no
+sympathy whatever with my tastes, nor with what I am. I'm an awful trial
+to him, and I don't see how to help it. It's pure waste of time, my
+going on in the Guards. I do it badly, and I hate it. Now, you're made
+for it; you're that sort, and that sort is my father's sort. But I'm
+not; no one knows that better than myself. Then there's the question of
+marriage, too."
+
+Michael gave a mirthless laugh.
+
+"I'm twenty-five, you see," he said, "and it's the family custom for the
+eldest son to marry at twenty-five, just as he's baptised when he's a
+certain number of weeks old, and confirmed when he is fifteen. It's part
+of the family plan, and the Medes and Persians aren't in it when the
+family plan is in question. Then, again, the lucky young woman has to be
+suitable; that is to say, she must be what my father calls 'one of us.'
+How I loathe that phrase! So my mother has a list of the suitable, and
+they come down to Ashbridge in gloomy succession, and she and I are
+sent out to play golf together or go on the river. And when, to our
+unutterable relief, that is over, we hurry back to the house, and I
+escape to my piano, and she goes and flirts with you, if you are there.
+Don't deny it. And then another one comes, and she is drearier than the
+last--at least, I am."
+
+Francis lay back and laughed at this dismal picture of the rejection of
+the fittest.
+
+"But you're so confoundedly hard to please, Mike," he said. "There was
+an awfully nice girl down at Ashbridge at Easter when I was there, who
+was simply pining to take you. I've forgotten her name."
+
+Michael clicked his fingers in a summary manner.
+
+"There you are!" he said. "You and she flirted all the time, and three
+months afterwards you don't even remember her name. If you had only been
+me, you would have married her. As it was, she and I bored each other
+stiff. There's an irony for you! But as for pining, I ask you whether
+any girl in her senses could pine for me. Look at me, and tell me! Or
+rather, don't look at me; I can't bear to be looked at."
+
+Here was one of Michael's morbid sensitivenesses. He seldom forgot his
+own physical appearance, the fact of which was to him appalling. His
+stumpy figure with its big body, his broad, blunt-featured face, his
+long arms, his large hands and feet, his clumsiness in movement were to
+him of the nature of a constant nightmare, and it was only with Francis
+and the ease that his solitary presence gave, or when he was occupied
+with music that he wholly lost his self-consciousness in this respect.
+It seemed to him that he must be as repulsive to others as he was to
+himself, which was a distorted view of the case. Plain without doubt he
+was, and of heavy and ungainly build; but his belief in the finality of
+his uncouthness was morbid and imaginary, and half his inability to get
+on with his fellows, no less than with the maidens who were brought
+down in single file to Ashbridge, was due to this. He knew very well
+how light-heartedly they escaped to the geniality and attractiveness of
+Francis, and in the clutch of his own introspective temperament he could
+not free himself from the handicap of his own sensitiveness, and, like
+others, take himself for granted. He crushed his own power to please by
+the weight of his judgments on himself.
+
+"So there's another reason to complain of the irony of fate," he said.
+"I don't want to marry anybody, and God knows nobody wants to marry me.
+But, then, it's my duty to become the father of another Lord Ashbridge,
+as if there had not been enough of them already, and his mother must
+be a certain kind of girl, with whom I have nothing in common. So I
+say that if only we could have changed places, you would have filled
+my niche so perfectly, and I should have been free to bury myself in
+Leipzig or Munich, and lived like the grub I certainly am, and have
+drowned myself in a sea of music. As it is, goodness knows what my
+father will say to the letter I wrote him yesterday, which he will have
+received this morning. However, that will soon be patent, for I go down
+there to-morrow. I wish you were coming with me. Can't you manage to for
+a day or two, and help things along? Aunt Barbara will be there."
+
+Francis consulted a small, green morocco pocket-book.
+
+"Can't to-morrow," he said, "nor yet the day after. But perhaps I could
+get a few days' leave next week."
+
+"Next week's no use. I go to Baireuth next week."
+
+"Baireuth? Who's Baireuth?" asked Francis.
+
+"Oh, a man I know. His other name was Wagner, and he wrote some tunes."
+
+Francis nodded.
+
+"Oh, but I've heard of him," he said. "They're rather long tunes, aren't
+they? At least I found them so when I went to the opera the other night.
+Go on with your plans, Mike. What do you mean to do after that?"
+
+"Go on to Munich and hear the same tunes over, again. After that I shall
+come back and settle down in town and study."
+
+"Play the piano?" asked Francis, amiably trying to enter into his
+cousin's schemes.
+
+Michael laughed.
+
+"No doubt that will come into it," he said. "But it's rather as if
+you told somebody you were a soldier, and he said: 'Oh, is that quick
+march?'"
+
+"So it is. Soldiering largely consists of quick march, especially when
+it's more than usually hot."
+
+"Well, I shall learn to play the piano," said Michael.
+
+"But you play so rippingly already," said Francis cordially. "You played
+all those songs the other night which you had never seen before. If you
+can do that, there is nothing more you want to learn with the piano, is
+there?"
+
+"You are talking rather as father will talk," observed Michael.
+
+"Am I? Well, I seem to be talking sense."
+
+"You weren't doing what you seemed, then. I've got absolutely everything
+to learn about the piano."
+
+Francis rose.
+
+"Then it is clear I don't understand anything about it," he said. "Nor,
+I suppose, does Uncle Robert. But, really, I rather envy you, Mike.
+Anyhow, you want to do and be something so much that you are gaily going
+to face unpleasantnesses with Uncle Robert about it. Now, I wouldn't
+face unpleasantnesses with anybody about anything I wanted to do, and I
+suppose the reason must be that I don't want to do anything enough."
+
+"The malady of not wanting," quoted Michael.
+
+"Yes, I've got that malady. The ordinary things that one naturally does
+are all so pleasant, and take all the time there is, that I don't want
+anything particular, especially now that you've been such a brick--"
+
+"Stop it," said Michael.
+
+"Right; I got it in rather cleverly. I was saying that it must be rather
+nice to want a thing so much that you'll go through a lot to get it.
+Most fellows aren't like that."
+
+"A good many fellows are jelly-fish," observed Michael.
+
+"I suppose so. I'm one, you know. I drift and float. But I don't think I
+sting. What are you doing to-night, by the way?"
+
+"Playing the piano, I hope. Why?"
+
+"Only that two fellows are dining with me, and I thought perhaps you
+would come. Aunt Barbara sent me the ticket for a box at the Gaiety,
+too, and we might look in there. Then there's a dance somewhere."
+
+"Thanks very much, but I think I won't," said Michael. "I'm rather
+looking forward to an evening alone."
+
+"And that's an odd thing to look forward to," remarked Francis.
+
+"Not when you want to play the piano. I shall have a chop here at eight,
+and probably thump away till midnight."
+
+Francis looked round for his hat and stick.
+
+"I must go," he said. "I ought to have gone long ago, but I didn't want
+to. The malady came in again. Most of the world have got it, you know,
+Michael."
+
+Michael rose and stood by his tall cousin.
+
+"I think we English have got it," he said. "At least, the English you
+and I know have got it. But I don't believe the Germans, for instance,
+have. They're in deadly earnest about all sorts of things--music among
+them, which is the point that concerns me. The music of the world is
+German, you know!"
+
+Francis demurred to this.
+
+"Oh, I don't think so," he said. "This thing at the Gaiety is ripping, I
+believe. Do come and see."
+
+
+Michael resisted this chance of revising his opinion about the German
+origin of music, and Francis drifted out into Piccadilly. It was already
+getting on for seven o'clock, and the roadway and pavements were full of
+people who seemed rather to contradict Michael's theory that the nation
+generally suffered from the malady of not wanting, so eagerly and
+numerously were they on the quest for amusement. Already the street was
+a mass of taxicabs and private motors containing, each one of them, men
+and women in evening dress, hurrying out to dine before the theatre
+or the opera. Bright, eager faces peered out, with sheen of silk and
+glitter of gems; they all seemed alert and prosperous and keen for the
+daily hours of evening entertainment. A crowd similar in spirit pervaded
+the pavements, white-shirted men with coat on arm stepped in and out
+of swinging club doors and the example set by the leisured class seemed
+copiously copied by those whom desks and shops had made prisoners
+all day. The air of the whole town, swarming with the nation that is
+supposed to make so grave an affair of its amusements, was indescribably
+gay and lighthearted; the whole city seemed set on enjoying itself.
+The buses that boomed along were packed inside and out, and each
+was placarded with advertisement of some popular piece at theatre or
+music-hall. Inside the Green Park the grass was populous with lounging
+figures, who, unable to pay for indoor entertainment, were making the
+most of what the coolness of sunset and grass supplied them with gratis;
+the newsboards of itinerant sellers contained nothing of more serious
+import than the result of cricket matches; and, as the dusk began to
+fall, street lamps and signs were lit, like early rising stars, so that
+no hint of the gathering night should be permitted to intrude on the
+perpetually illuminated city. All that was sordid and sad, all that was
+busy (except on these gay errands of pleasure) was shuffled away out of
+sight, so that the pleasure seekers might be excused for believing that
+there was nothing in the world that could demand their attention except
+the need of amusing themselves successfully. The workers toiled in order
+that when the working day was over the fruits of their labour might
+yield a harvest of a few hours' enjoyment; silkworms had spun so that
+from carriage windows might glimmer the wrappings made from their
+cocoons; divers had been imperilled in deep seas so that the pearls they
+had won might embellish the necks of these fair wearers.
+
+To Francis this all seemed very natural and proper, part of the
+recognised order of things that made up the series of sensations known
+to him as life. He did not, as he had said, very particularly care
+about anything, and it was undoubtedly true that there was no motive
+or conscious purpose in his life for which he would voluntarily have
+undergone any important stress of discomfort or annoyance. It was true
+that in pursuance of his profession there was a certain amount of "quick
+marching" and drill to be done in the heat, but that was incidental to
+the fact that he was in the Guards, and more than compensated for by the
+pleasures that were also naturally incidental to it. He would have been
+quite unable to think of anything that he would sooner do than what
+he did; and he had sufficient of the ingrained human tendency to do
+something of the sort, which was a matter of routine rather than effort,
+than have nothing whatever, except the gratification of momentary
+whims, to fill his day. Besides, it was one of the conventions or even
+conditions of life that every boy on leaving school "did" something for
+a certain number of years. Some went into business in order to acquire
+the wealth that should procure them leisure; some, like himself, became
+soldiers or sailors, not because they liked guns and ships, but because
+to boys of a certain class these professions supplied honourable
+employment and a pleasant time. Without being in any way slack in his
+regimental duties, he performed them as many others did, without the
+smallest grain of passion, and without any imaginative forecast as to
+what fruit, if any, there might be to these hours spent in drill and
+discipline. He was but one of a very large number who do their work
+without seriously bothering their heads about its possible meaning or
+application. His particular job gave a young man a pleasant position
+and an easy path to general popularity, given that he was willing to be
+sociable and amused. He was extremely ready to be both the one and the
+other, and there his philosophy of life stopped.
+
+And, indeed, it seemed on this hot July evening that the streets were
+populated by philosophers like unto himself. Never had England generally
+been more prosperous, more secure, more comfortable. The heavens of
+international politics were as serene as the evening sky; not yet was
+the storm-cloud that hung over Ireland bigger than a man's hand; east,
+west, north and south there brooded the peace of the close of a halcyon
+day, and the amazing doings of the Suffragettes but added a slight
+incentive to the perusal of the morning paper. The arts flourished,
+harvests prospered; the world like a newly-wound clock seemed to be in
+for a spell of serene and orderly ticking, with an occasional chime just
+to show how the hours were passing.
+
+London was an extraordinarily pleasant place, people were friendly,
+amusements beckoned on all sides; and for Francis, as for so many
+others, but a very moderate amount of work was necessary to win him
+an approved place in the scheme of things, a seat in the slow-wheeling
+sunshine. It really was not necessary to want, above all to undergo
+annoyances for the sake of what you wanted, since so many pleasurable
+distractions, enough to fill day and night twice over, were so richly
+spread around.
+
+Some day he supposed he would marry, settle down and become in time one
+of those men who presented a bald head in a club window to the gaze
+of passers-by. It was difficult, perhaps, to see how you could enjoy
+yourself or lead a life that paid its own way in pleasure at the age of
+forty, but that he trusted that he would learn in time. At present it
+was sufficient to know that in half an hour two excellent friends would
+come to dinner, and that they would proceed in a spirit of amiable
+content to the Gaiety. After that there was a ball somewhere (he had
+forgotten where, but one of the others would be sure to know), and
+to-morrow and to-morrow would be like unto to-day. It was idle to
+ask questions of oneself when all went so well; the time for asking
+questions was when there was matter for complaint, and with him
+assuredly there was none. The advantages of being twenty-three years
+old, gay and good-looking, without a care in the world, now that he had
+Michael's cheque in his pocket, needed no comment, still less complaint.
+He, like the crowd who had sufficient to pay for a six-penny seat at a
+music-hall, was perfectly content with life in general; to-morrow
+would be time enough to do a little more work and glean a little more
+pleasure.
+
+It was indeed an admirable England, where it was not necessary even
+to desire, for there were so many things, bright, cheerful things to
+distract the mind from desire. It was a day of dozing in the sun, like
+the submerged, scattered units or duets on the grass of the Green Park,
+of behaving like the lilies of the field. . . . Francis found he was
+rather late, and proceeded hastily to his mother's house in Savile
+Row to array himself, if not "like one of these," like an exceedingly
+well-dressed young man, who demanded of his tailor the utmost of his
+art; with the prospect, owing to Michael's generosity, of being paid
+to-morrow.
+
+
+Michael, when his cousin had left him, did not at once proceed to his
+evening by himself with his piano, though an hour before he had longed
+to be alone with it and a pianoforte arrangement of the Meistersingers,
+of which he had promised himself a complete perusal that evening.
+But Francis's visit had already distracted him, and he found now
+that Francis's departure took him even farther away from his designed
+evening. Francis, with his good looks and his gay spirits, his easy
+friendships and perfect content (except when a small matter of deficit
+and dunning letters obscured the sunlight for a moment), was exactly all
+that he would have wished to be himself. But the moment he formulated
+that wish in his mind, he knew that he would not voluntarily have parted
+with one atom of his own individuality in order to be Francis or anybody
+else. He was aware how easy and pleasant life would become if he could
+look on it with Francis's eyes, and if the world would look on him as it
+looked on his cousin. There would be no more bother. . . . In a
+moment, he would, by this exchange, have parted with his own unhappy
+temperament, his own deplorable body, and have stepped into an amiable
+and prosperous little neutral kingdom that had no desires and no
+regrets. He would have been free from all wants, except such as could
+be gratified so easily by a little work and a great capacity for being
+amused; he would have found himself excellently fitting the niche into
+which the rulers of birth and death had placed him: an eldest son of
+a great territorial magnate, who had what was called a stake in the
+country, and desired nothing better.
+
+Willingly, as he had said, would he have changed circumstances with
+Francis, but he knew that he would not, for any bait the world could
+draw in front of him, have changed natures with him, even when, to
+all appearance, the gain would so vastly have been on his side. It was
+better to want and to miss than to be content. Even at this moment,
+when Francis had taken the sunshine out of the room with his departure,
+Michael clung to his own gloom and his own uncouthness, if by getting
+rid of them he would also have been obliged to get rid of his own
+temperament, unhappy as it was, but yet capable of strong desire. He did
+not want to be content; he wanted to see always ahead of him a golden
+mist, through which the shadows of unconjecturable shapes appeared. He
+was willing and eager to get lost, if only he might go wandering on,
+groping with his big hands, stumbling with his clumsy feet,
+desiring . . .
+
+There are the indications of a path visible to all who desire. Michael
+knew that his path, the way that seemed to lead in the direction of
+the ultimate goal, was music. There, somehow, in that direction lay his
+destiny; that was the route. He was not like the majority of his sex
+and years, who weave their physical and mental dreams in the loom of a
+girl's face, in her glance, in the curves of her mouth. Deliberately,
+owing chiefly to his morbid consciousness of his own physical defects,
+he had long been accustomed to check the instincts natural to a young
+man in this regard. He had seen too often the facility with which
+others, more fortunate than he, get delightedly lost in that golden
+haze; he had experienced too often the absence of attractiveness in
+himself. How could any girl of the London ballroom, he had so frequently
+asked himself, tolerate dancing or sitting out with him when there was
+Francis, and a hundred others like him, so pleased to take his place?
+Nor, so he told himself, was his mind one whit more apt than his body.
+It did not move lightly and agreeably with unconscious smiles and easy
+laughter. By nature he was monkish, he was celibate. He could but cease
+to burn incense at such ineffectual altars, and help, as he had helped
+this afternoon, to replenish the censers of more fortunate acolytes.
+
+This was all familiar to him; it passed through his head unbidden,
+when Francis had left him, like the refrain of some well-known song,
+occurring spontaneously without need of an effort of memory. It was
+a possession of his, known by heart, and it no longer, except for
+momentary twinges, had any bitterness for him. This afternoon, it is
+true, there had been one such, when Francis, gleeful with his cheque,
+had gone out to his dinner and his theatre and his dance, inviting him
+cheerfully to all of them. In just that had been the bitterness--namely,
+that Francis had so overflowing a well-spring of content that he
+could be cordial in bidding him cast a certain gloom over these
+entertainments. Michael knew, quite unerringly, that Francis and his
+friends would not enjoy themselves quite so much if he was with them;
+there would be the restraint of polite conversation at dinner instead of
+completely idle babble, there would be less outspoken normality at the
+Gaiety, a little more decorum about the whole of the boyish proceedings.
+He knew all that so well, so terribly well. . . .
+
+His servant had come in with the evening paper, and the implied
+suggestion of the propriety of going to dress before he roused himself.
+He decided not to dress, as he was going to spend the evening alone,
+and, instead, he seated himself at the piano with his copy of the
+Meistersingers and, mechanically at first, with the ragged cloud-fleeces
+of his reverie hanging about his brain, banged away at the overture.
+He had extraordinary dexterity of finger for one who had had so little
+training, and his hands, with their great stretch, made light work of
+octaves and even tenths. His knowledge of the music enabled him to wake
+the singing bird of memory in his head, and before long flute and horn
+and string and woodwind began to make themselves heard in his inner ear.
+Twice his servant came in to tell him that his dinner was ready, but
+Michael had no heed for anything but the sounds which his flying fingers
+suggested to him. Francis, his father, his own failure in the life
+that had been thrust on him were all gone; he was with the singers of
+Nuremberg.
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+The River Ashe, after a drowsy and meandering childhood, passed
+peacefully among the sedges and marigolds of its water meadows, suddenly
+and somewhat disconcertingly grows up and, without any period of
+transition and adolescence, becomes, from being a mere girl of a
+rivulet, a male and full-blooded estuary of the sea. At Coton, for
+instance, the tips of the sculls of a sauntering pleasure-boat will
+almost span its entire width, while, but a mile farther down, you will
+see stone-laden barges and tall, red-winged sailing craft coming up with
+the tide, and making fast to the grey wooden quay wall of Ashbridge,
+rough with barnacles. For the reeds and meadow-sweet of its margin are
+exchanged the brown and green growths of the sea, with their sharp,
+acrid odour instead of the damp, fresh smell of meadow flowers, and at
+low tide the podded bladders of brown weed and long strings of marine
+macaroni, among which peevish crabs scuttle sideways, take the place
+of the grass and spires of loosestrife; and over the water, instead of
+singing larks, hang white companies of chiding seagulls. Here at high
+tide extends a sheet of water large enough, when the wind blows up the
+estuary, to breed waves that break in foam and spray against the barges,
+while at the ebb acres of mud flats are disclosed on which the boats
+lean slanting till the flood lifts them again and makes them strain at
+the wheezing ropes that tie them to the quay.
+
+A year before the flame of war went roaring through Europe in
+unquenchable conflagration it would have seemed that nothing could
+possibly rouse Ashbridge from its red-brick Georgian repose. There was
+never a town so inimitably drowsy or so sternly uncompetitive. A hundred
+years ago it must have presented almost precisely the same appearance as
+it did in the summer of 1913, if we leave out of reckoning a few
+dozen of modern upstart villas that line its outskirts, and the very
+inconspicuous railway station that hides itself behind the warehouses
+near the river's bank. Most of the trains, too, quite ignore its
+existence, and pass through it on their way to more rewarding
+stopping-places, hardly recognising it even by a spurt of steam from
+their whistles, and it is only if you travel by those that require
+the most frequent pauses in their progress that you will be enabled to
+alight at its thin and depopulated platform.
+
+Just outside the station there perennially waits a low-roofed and
+sanguine omnibus that under daily discouragement continues to hope that
+in the long-delayed fulness of time somebody will want to be driven
+somewhere. (This nobody ever does, since the distance to any house is so
+small, and a porter follows with luggage on a barrow.) It carries on its
+floor a quantity of fresh straw, in the manner of the stage coaches, in
+which the problematic passenger, should he ever appear, will no doubt
+bury his feet. On its side, just below the window that is not made to
+open, it carries the legend that shows that it belongs to the Comber
+Arms, a hostelry so self-effacing that it is discoverable only by the
+sharpest-eyed of pilgrims. Narrow roadways, flanked by proportionately
+narrower pavements, lie ribbon-like between huddled shops and
+squarely-spacious Georgian houses; and an air of leisure and content,
+amounting almost to stupefaction, is the moral atmosphere of the place.
+
+On the outskirts of the town, crowning the gentle hills that lie to the
+north and west, villas in acre plots, belonging to business men in the
+county town some ten miles distant, "prick their Cockney ears" and are
+strangely at variance with the sober gravity of the indigenous houses.
+So, too, are the manners and customs of their owners, who go to
+Stoneborough every morning to their work, and return by the train that
+brings them home in time for dinner. They do other exotic and unsuitable
+things also, like driving swiftly about in motors, in playing golf on
+the other side of the river at Coton, and in having parties at each
+other's houses. But apart from them nobody ever seems to leave Ashbridge
+(though a stroll to the station about the time that the evening train
+arrives is a recognised diversion) or, in consequence, ever to come
+back. Ashbridge, in fact, is self-contained, and desires neither to
+meddle with others nor to be meddled with.
+
+The estuary opposite the town is some quarter of a mile broad at high
+tide, and in order to cross to the other side, where lie the woods and
+park of Ashbridge House, it is necessary to shout and make staccato
+prancings in order to attract the attention of the antique ferryman, who
+is invariably at the other side of the river and generally asleep at the
+bottom of his boat. If you are strong-lunged and can prance and shout
+for a long time, he may eventually stagger to his feet, come across
+for you and row you over. Otherwise you will stand but little chance of
+arousing him from his slumbers, and you will stop where you are, unless
+you choose to walk round by the bridge at Coton, a mile above.
+
+Periodical attempts are made by the brisker inhabitants of Ashbridge,
+who do not understand its spirit, to substitute for this aged and
+ineffectual Charon someone who is occasionally awake, but nothing ever
+results from these revolutionary moves, and the requests addressed to
+the town council on the subject are never heard of again. "Old George"
+was ferryman there before any members of the town council were born, and
+he seems to have established a right to go to sleep on the other side of
+the river which is now inalienable from him. Besides, asleep or awake,
+he is always perfectly sober, which, after all, is really one of the
+first requirements for a suitable ferryman. Even the representations of
+Lord Ashbridge himself who, when in residence, frequently has occasion
+to use the ferry when crossing from his house to the town, failed to
+produce the smallest effect, and he was compelled to build a boathouse
+of his own on the farther bank, and be paddled across by himself or
+one of the servants. Often he rowed himself, for he used to be a fine
+oarsman, and it was good for the lounger on the quay to see the foaming
+prow of his vigorous progress and the dignity of physical toil.
+
+In all other respects, except in this case of "Old George," Lord
+Ashbridge's wishes were law to the local authorities, for in this
+tranquil East-coast district the spirit of the feudal system with
+a beneficent lord and contented tenants strongly survived. It had
+triumphed even over such modern innovations as railroads, for Lord
+Ashbridge had the undoubted right to stop any train he pleased by signal
+at Ashbridge station. This he certainly enjoyed doing; it fed his sense
+of the fitness of things to progress along the platform with his genial,
+important tiptoe walk, and elbows squarely stuck out, to the carriage
+that was at once reserved for him, to touch the brim of his grey top-hat
+(if travelling up to town) to the obsequious guard, and to observe the
+heads of passengers who wondered why their express was arrested, thrust
+out of carriage windows to look at him. A livened footman, as well as a
+valet, followed him, bearing a coat and a rug and a morning or evening
+paper and a dispatch-box with a large gilt coronet on it, and bestowed
+these solaces to a railway journey on the empty seats near him. And
+not only his sense of fitness was hereby fed, but that also of the
+station-master and the solitary porter and the newsboy, and such
+inhabitants of Ashbridge as happened to have strolled on to the
+platform. For he was THEIR Earl of Ashbridge, kind, courteous and
+dominant, a local king; it was all very pleasant.
+
+But this arrest of express trains was a strictly personal privilege;
+when Lady Ashbridge or Michael travelled they always went in the slow
+train to Stoneborough, changed there and abided their time on the
+platform like ordinary mortals. Though he could undoubtedly have
+extended his rights to the stopping of a train for his wife or son, he
+wisely reserved this for himself, lest it should lose prestige. There
+was sufficient glory already (to probe his mind to the bottom) for Lady
+Ashbridge in being his wife; it was sufficient also for Michael that he
+was his son.
+
+It may be inferred that there was a touch of pomposity about this
+admirable gentleman, who was so excellent a landlord and so hard working
+a member of the British aristocracy. But pomposity would be far too
+superficial a word to apply to him; it would not adequately connote
+his deep-abiding and essential conviction that on one of the days of
+Creation (that, probably, on which the decree was made that there should
+be Light) there leaped into being the great landowners of England.
+
+But Lord Ashbridge, though himself a peer, by no means accepted the
+peerage en bloc as representing the English aristocracy; to be, in
+his phrase, "one of us" implied that you belonged to certain
+well-ascertained families where brewers and distinguished soldiers
+had no place, unless it was theirs already. He was ready to pay all
+reasonable homage to those who were distinguished by their abilities,
+their riches, their exalted positions in Church and State, but his
+homage to such was transfused with a courteous condescension, and he
+only treated as his equals and really revered those who belonged to the
+families that were "one of us."
+
+His wife, of course, was "one of us," since he would never have
+permitted himself to be allied to a woman who was not, though for beauty
+and wisdom she might have been Aphrodite and Athene rolled compactly
+into one peerless identity. As a matter of fact, Lady Ashbridge had
+not the faintest resemblance to either of these effulgent goddesses. In
+person she resembled a camel, long and lean, with a drooping mouth and
+tired, patient eyes, while in mind she was stunned. No idea other than
+an obvious one ever had birth behind her high, smooth forehead, and she
+habitually brought conversation to a close by the dry enunciation of
+something indubitably true, which had no direct relation to the point
+under discussion. But she had faint, ineradicable prejudices, and
+instincts not quite dormant. There was a large quantity of mild
+affection in her nature, the quality of which may be illustrated by
+the fact that when her father died she cried a little every day after
+breakfast for about six weeks. Then she did not cry any more. It was
+impossible not to like what there was of her, but there was really very
+little to like, for she belonged heart and soul to the generation and
+the breeding among which it is enough for a woman to be a lady, and
+visit the keeper's wife when she has a baby.
+
+But though there was so little of her, the balance was made up for
+by the fact that there was so much of her husband. His large, rather
+flamboyant person, his big white face and curling brown beard, his loud
+voice and his falsetto laugh, his absolutely certain opinions, above all
+the fervency of his consciousness of being Lord Ashbridge and all which
+that implied, completely filled any place he happened to be in, so
+that a room empty except for him gave the impression of being almost
+uncomfortably crowded. This keen consciousness of his identity was
+naturally sufficient to make him very good humoured, since he was
+himself a fine example of the type that he admired most. Probably only
+two persons in the world had the power of causing him annoyance, but
+both of these, by an irony of fate that it seemed scarcely possible to
+consider accidental, were closely connected with him, for one was his
+sister, the other his only son.
+
+The grounds of their potentiality in this respect can be easily
+stated. Barbara Comber, his sister (and so "one of us"), had married an
+extremely wealthy American, who, in Lord Ashbridge's view, could not be
+considered one of anybody at all; in other words, his imagination failed
+to picture a whole class of people who resembled Anthony Jerome. He had
+hoped when his sister announced her intention of taking this deplorable
+step that his future brother-in-law would at any rate prove to be a
+snob--he had a vague notion that all Americans were snobs--and that thus
+Mr. Jerome would have the saving grace to admire and toady him. But Mr.
+Jerome showed no signs of doing anything of the sort; he treated him
+with an austere and distant politeness that Lord Ashbridge could
+not construe as being founded on admiration and a sense of his own
+inferiority, for it was so clearly founded on dislike. That, however,
+did not annoy Lord Ashbridge, for it was easy to suppose that poor Mr.
+Jerome knew no better. But Barbara annoyed him, for not only had she
+shown herself a renegade in marrying a man who was not "one of us," but
+with all the advantages she had enjoyed since birth of knowing what
+"we" were, she gloried in her new relations, saying, without any proper
+reticence about the matter, that they were Real People, whose character
+and wits vastly transcended anything that Combers had to show.
+
+Michael was an even more vexatious case, and in moments of depression
+his father thought that he would really turn in his grave at the dismal
+idea of Michael having stepped into his honourable shoes. Physically he
+was utterly unlike a Comber, and his mind, his general attitude
+towards life seemed to have diverged even farther from that healthy and
+unreflective pattern. Only this morning his father had received a letter
+from him that summed Michael up, that fulfilled all the doubts and fears
+that had hung about him; for after three years in the Guards he had,
+without consultation with anybody, resigned his commission on the
+inexplicable grounds that he wanted to do something with his life. To
+begin with that was rankly heretical; if you were a Comber there was no
+need to do anything with your life; life did everything for you. . . .
+And what this un-Comberish young man wanted to do with his life was to
+be a musician. That musicians, artists, actors, had a right to exist
+Lord Ashbridge did not question. They were no doubt (or might be)
+very excellent people in their way, and as a matter of fact he often
+recognised their existence by going to the opera, to the private view
+of the Academy, or to the play, and he took a very considerable pride of
+proprietorship in his own admirable collection of family portraits. But
+then those were pictures of Combers; Reynolds and Romney and the rest of
+them had enjoyed the privilege of perpetuating on their canvases these
+big, fine men and charming women. But that a Comber--and that one
+positively the next Lord Ashbridge--should intend to devote his energies
+to an artistic calling, and allude to that scheme as doing something
+with his life, was a thing as unthinkable as if the butler had developed
+a fixed idea that he was "one of us."
+
+The blow was a recent one; Michael's letter had only reached his father
+this morning, and at the present moment Lord Ashbridge was attempting
+over a cup of tea on the long south terrace overlooking the estuary to
+convey--not very successfully--to his wife something of his feelings
+on the subject. She, according to her custom, was drinking a little hot
+water herself, and providing her Chinese pug with a mixture of cream
+and crumbled rusks. Though the dog was of undoubtedly high lineage, Lord
+Ashbridge rather detested her.
+
+"A musical career!" he exclaimed, referring to Michael's letter. "What
+sort of a career for a Comber is a musical career? I shall tell Michael
+pretty roundly when he arrives this evening what I think of it all. We
+shall have Francis next saying that he wants to resign, too, and become
+a dentist."
+
+Lady Ashbridge considered this for a moment in her stunned mind.
+
+"Dear me, Robert, I hope not," she said. "I do not think it the least
+likely that Francis would do anything of the kind. Look, Petsy is
+better; she has drunk her cream and rusks quite up. I think it was only
+the heat."
+
+He gave a little good-humoured giggle of falsetto laughter.
+
+"I wish, Marion," he said, "that you could manage to take your mind off
+your dog for a moment and attend to me. And I must really ask you not to
+give your Petsy any more cream, or she will certainly be sick."
+
+Lady Ashbridge gave a little sigh.
+
+"All gone, Petsy," she said.
+
+"I am glad it has all gone," said he, "and we will hope it won't return.
+But about Michael now!"
+
+Lady Ashbridge pulled herself together.
+
+"Yes, poor Michael!" she said. "He is coming to-night, is he not? But
+just now you were speaking of Francis, and the fear of his wanting to be
+a dentist!"
+
+"Well, I am now speaking of Michael's wanting to be a musician. Of
+course that is utterly out of the question. If, as he says, he has sent
+in his resignation, he will just have to beg them to cancel it. Michael
+seems not to have the slightest idea of the duties which his birth and
+position entail on him. Unfitted for the life he now leads . . . waste
+of time. . . . Instead he proposes to go to Baireuth in August, and then
+to settle down in London to study!"
+
+Lady Ashbridge recollected the almanac.
+
+"That will be in September, then," she said. "I do not think I was ever
+in London in September. I did not know that anybody was."
+
+"The point, my dear, is not how or where you have been accustomed to
+spend your Septembers," said her husband. "What we are talking about
+is--"
+
+"Yes, dear, I know quite well what we are talking about," said she. "We
+are talking about Michael not studying music all September."
+
+Lord Ashbridge got up and began walking across the terrace opposite the
+tea-table with his elbows stuck out and his feet lifted rather high.
+
+"Michael doesn't seem to realise that he is not Tom or Dick or Harry,"
+said he. "Music, indeed! I'm musical myself; all we Combers are musical.
+But Michael is my only son, and it really distresses me to see how
+little sense he has of his responsibilities. Amusements are all very
+well; it is not that I want to cut him off his amusements, but when it
+comes to a career--"
+
+Lady Ashbridge was surreptitiously engaged in pouring out a little more
+cream for Petsy, and her husband, turning rather sooner than she had
+expected, caught her in the act.
+
+"Do not give Petsy any more cream," he said, with some asperity; "I
+absolutely forbid it."
+
+Lady Ashbridge quite composedly replaced the cream-jug.
+
+"Poor Petsy!" she observed.
+
+"I ask you to attend to me, Marion," he said.
+
+"But I am attending to you very well, Robert," said she, "and I
+understand you perfectly. You do not want Michael to be a musician in
+September and wear long hair and perhaps play at concerts. I am sure
+I quite agree with you, for such a thing would be as unheard of in my
+family as in yours. But how do you propose to stop it?"
+
+"I shall use my authority," he said, stepping a little higher.
+
+"Yes, dear, I am sure you will. But what will happen if Michael doesn't
+pay any attention to your authority? You will be worse off than ever.
+Poor Michael is very obedient when he is told to do anything he intends
+to do, but when he doesn't agree it is difficult to do anything with
+him. And, you see, he is quite independent of you with my mother having
+left him so much money. Poor mamma!"
+
+Lord Ashbridge felt strongly about this.
+
+"It was a most extraordinary disposition of her property for your mother
+to make," he observed. "It has given Michael an independence which I
+much deplore. And she did it in direct opposition to my wishes."
+
+This touched on one of the questions about which Lady Ashbridge had her
+convictions. She had a mild but unalterable opinion that when anybody
+died, all that they had previously done became absolutely flawless and
+laudable.
+
+"Mamma did as she thought right with her property," she said, "and it
+is not for us to question it. She was conscientiousness itself. You will
+have to excuse my listening to any criticism you may feel inclined to
+make about her, Robert."
+
+"Certainly, my dear. I only want you to listen to me about Michael. You
+agree with me on the impossibility of his adopting a musical career. I
+cannot, at present, think so ill of Michael as to suppose that he will
+defy our joint authority."
+
+"Michael has a great will of his own," she remarked. "He gets that from
+you, Robert, though he gets his money from his grandmother."
+
+The futility of further discussion with his wife began to dawn on Lord
+Ashbridge, as it dawned on everybody who had the privilege of conversing
+with her. Her mind was a blind alley that led nowhere; it was clear that
+she had no idea to contribute to the subject except slightly pessimistic
+forebodings with which, unfortunately, he found himself secretly
+disposed to agree. He had always felt that Michael was an uncomfortable
+sort of boy; in other words, that he had the inconvenient habit of
+thinking things out for himself, instead of blindly accepting the
+conclusions of other people.
+
+Much as Lord Ashbridge valued the sturdy independence of character which
+he himself enjoyed displaying, he appreciated it rather less highly when
+it was manifested by people who were not sensible enough to agree
+with him. He looked forward to Michael's arrival that evening with the
+feeling that there was a rebellious standard hoisted against the calm
+blue of the evening sky, and remembering the advent of his sister he
+wondered whether she would not join the insurgent. Barbara Jerome, as
+has been remarked, often annoyed her brother; she also genially laughed
+at him; but Lord Ashbridge, partly from affection, partly from a
+loyal family sense of clanship, always expected his sister to spend
+a fortnight with him in August, and would have been much hurt had she
+refused to do so. Her husband, however, so far from spending a fortnight
+with his brother-in-law, never spent a minute in his presence if it
+could possibly be avoided, an arrangement which everybody concerned
+considered to be wise, and in the interests of cordiality.
+
+"And Barbara comes this evening as well as Michael, does she not?" he
+said. "I hope she will not take Michael's part in his absurd scheme."
+
+"I have given Barbara the blue room," said Lady Ashbridge, after a
+little thought. "I am afraid she may bring her great dog with her. I
+hope he will not quarrel with Petsy. Petsy does not like other dogs."
+
+
+The day had been very hot, and Lord Ashbridge, not having taken any
+exercise, went off to have a round of golf with the professional of the
+links that lay not half a mile from the house. He considered exercise
+an essential part of the true Englishman's daily curriculum, and as
+necessary a contribution to the traditional mode of life which made them
+all what they were--or should be--as a bath in the morning or attendance
+at church on Sunday. He did not care so much about playing golf with
+a casual friend, because the casual friend, as a rule, casually beat
+him--thus putting him in an un-English position--and preferred a game
+with this first-class professional whose duty it was--in complete
+violation of his capacities--to play just badly enough to be beaten
+towards the end of the round after an exciting match. It required a
+good deal of cleverness and self-control to accomplish this, for Lord
+Ashbridge was a notably puerile performer, but he generally managed it
+with tact and success, by dint of missing absurdly easy putts, and (here
+his skill came in) by pulling and slicing his ball into far-distant
+bunkers. Throughout the game it was his business to keep up a running
+fire of admiring ejaculations such as "Well driven, my lord," or "A
+fine putt, my lord. Ah! dear me, I wish I could putt like that," though
+occasionally his chorus of praise betrayed him into error, and from
+habit he found himself saying: "Good shot, my lord," when my lord had
+just made an egregious mess of things. But on the whole he devised so
+pleasantly sycophantic an atmosphere as to procure a substantial tip for
+himself, and to make Lord Ashbridge conscious of being a very superior
+performer. Whether at the bottom of his heart he knew he could not play
+at all, he probably did not inquire; the result of his matches and his
+opponent's skilfully-showered praise was sufficient for him. So now he
+left the discouraging companionship of his wife and Petsy and walked
+swingingly across the garden and the park to the links, there to seek
+in Macpherson's applause the self-confidence that would enable him to
+encounter his republican sister and his musical son with an unyielding
+front.
+
+His spirits mounted rapidly as he went. It pleased him to go jauntily
+across the lawn and reflect that all this smooth turf was his, to look
+at the wealth of well-tended flowers in his garden and know that all
+this polychromatic loveliness was bred in Lord Ashbridge's borders (and
+was graciously thrown open to the gaze of the admiring public on Sunday
+afternoon, when they were begged to keep off the grass), and that Lord
+Ashbridge was himself. He liked reminding himself that the towering elms
+drew their leafy verdure from Lord Ashbridge's soil; that the rows of
+hen-coops in the park, populous and cheeping with infant pheasants,
+belonged to the same fortunate gentleman who in November would so
+unerringly shoot them down as they rocketted swiftly over the highest
+of his tree-tops; that to him also appertained the long-fronted Jacobean
+house which stood so commandingly upon the hill-top, and glowed with
+all the mellowness of its three-hundred-years-old bricks. And his
+satisfaction was not wholly fatuous nor entirely personal; all these
+spacious dignities were insignia (temporarily conferred on him, like
+some order, and permanently conferred on his family) of the splendid
+political constitution under which England had made herself mistress
+of an empire and the seas that guarded it. Probably he would have been
+proud of belonging to that even if he had not been "one of us"; as it
+was, the high position which he occupied in it caused that pride to be
+slightly mixed with the pride that was concerned with the notion of the
+Empire belonging to him and his peers.
+
+But though he was the most profound of Tories, he would truthfully have
+professed (as indeed he practised in the management of his estates) the
+most Liberal opinions as to schemes for the amelioration of the lower
+classes. Only, just as the music he was good enough to listen to had to
+be played for him, so the tenants and farmers had to be his dependents.
+He looked after them very well indeed, conceiving this to be the
+prime duty of a great landlord, but his interest in them was really
+proprietary. It was of his bounty, and of his complete knowledge of
+what his duties as "one of us" were, that he did so, and any legislation
+which compelled him to part with one pennyworth of his property for the
+sake of others less fortunate he resisted to the best of his ability as
+a theft of what was his. The country, in fact, if it went to the dogs
+(and certain recent legislation distinctly seemed to point kennelwards),
+would go to the dogs because ignorant politicians, who were most
+emphatically not "of us," forced him and others like him to recognise
+the rights of dependents instead of trusting to their instinctive
+fitness to dispense benefits not as rights but as acts of grace. If
+England trusted to her aristocracy (to put the matter in a nutshell) all
+would be well with her in the future even as it had been in the past,
+but any attempt to curtail their splendours must inevitably detract
+from the prestige and magnificence of the Empire. . . . And he responded
+suitably to the obsequious salute of the professional, and remembered
+that the entire golf links were his property, and that the Club paid a
+merely nominal rental to him, just the tribute money of a penny which
+was due to Caesar.
+
+
+For the next hour or two after her husband had left her, Lady Ashbridge
+occupied herself in the thoroughly lady-like pursuit of doing nothing
+whatever; she just existed in her comfortable chair, since Barbara
+might come any moment, and she would have to entertain her, which she
+frequently did unawares. But as Barbara continued not to come, she took
+up her perennial piece of needlework, feeling rather busy and pressed,
+and had hardly done so when her sister-in-law arrived.
+
+She was preceded by an enormous stag-hound, who, having been shut up in
+her motor all the way from London, bounded delightedly, with the sense
+of young limbs released, on to the terrace, and made wild leaps in
+a circle round the horrified Petsy, who had just received a second
+saucerful of cream. Once he dashed in close, and with a single lick of
+his tongue swept the saucer dry of nutriment, and with hoarse barkings
+proceeded again to dance corybantically about, while Lady Ashbridge
+with faint cries of dismay waved her embroidery at him. Then, seeing
+his mistress coming out of the French window from the drawing-room, he
+bounded calf-like towards her, and Petsy, nearly sick with cream and
+horror, was gathered to Lady Ashbridge's bosom.
+
+"My dear Barbara," she said, "how upsetting your dog is! Poor Petsy's
+heart is beating terribly; she does not like dogs. But I am very pleased
+to see you, and I have given you the blue room."
+
+It was clearly suitable that Barbara Jerome should have a large dog,
+for both in mind and body she was on the large scale herself. She had a
+pleasant, high-coloured face, was very tall, enormously stout, and moved
+with great briskness and vigour. She had something to say on any subject
+that came on the board; and, what was less usual in these days of
+universal knowledge, there was invariably some point in what she said.
+She had, in the ordinary sense of the word, no manners at all,
+but essentially made up for this lack by her sincere and humourous
+kindliness. She saw with acute vividness the ludicrous side of
+everybody, herself included, and to her mind the arch-humourist of
+all was her brother, whom she was quite unable to take seriously. She
+dressed as if she had looted a milliner's shop and had put on in a great
+hurry anything that came to hand. She towered over her sister-in-law as
+she kissed her, and Petsy, safe in her citadel, barked shrilly.
+
+"My dear, which is the blue room?" she said. "I hope it is big enough
+for Og and me. Yes, that is Og, which is short for dog. He takes two
+mutton-chops for dinner, and a little something during the night if he
+feels disposed, because he is still growing. Tony drove down with me,
+and is in the car now. He would not come in for fear of seeing Robert,
+so I ventured to tell them to take him a cup of tea there, which he will
+drink with the blinds down, and then drive back to town again. He has
+been made American ambassador, by the way, and will go in to dinner
+before Robert. My dear, I can think of few things which Robert is less
+fitted to bear than that. However, we all have our crosses, even those
+of us who have our coronets also."
+
+Lady Ashbridge's hospitable instincts asserted themselves. "But your
+husband must come in," she said. "I will go and tell him. And Robert has
+gone to play golf."
+
+Barbara laughed.
+
+"I am quite sure Tony won't come in," she said. "I promised him he
+shouldn't, and he only drove down with me on the express stipulation
+that no risks were to be run about his seeing Robert. We must take no
+chances, so let him have his tea quietly in the motor and then drive
+away again. And who else is there? Anybody? Michael?"
+
+"Michael comes this evening."
+
+"I am glad; I am particularly fond of Michael. Also he will play to us
+after dinner, and though I don't know one note from another, it will
+relieve me of sitting in a stately circle watching Robert cheat at
+patience. I always find the evenings here rather trying; they remind me
+of being in church. I feel as if I were part of a corporate body, which
+leads to misplaced decorum. Ah! there is the sound of Tony's retreating
+motor; his strategic movement has come off. And now give me some news,
+if you can get in a word. Dear me, there is Robert coming back across
+the lawn. What a mercy that Tony did not leave the motor. Robert always
+walks as if he was dancing a minuet. Look, there is Og imitating him! Or
+is he stalking him, thinking he is an enemy. Og, come here!"
+
+She whistled shrilly on her fingers, and rose to greet her brother, whom
+Og was still menacing, as he advanced towards her with staccato steps.
+Barbara, however, got between Og and his prey, and threw her parasol at
+him.
+
+"My dear, how are you?" she said. "And how did the golf go? And did you
+beat the professional?"
+
+He suspected flippancy here, and became markedly dignified.
+
+"An excellent match," he said, "and Macpherson tells me I played a very
+sound game. I am delighted to see you, Barbara. And did Michael come
+down with you?"
+
+"No. I drove from town. It saves time, but not expense, with your awful
+trains."
+
+"And you are well, and Mr. Jerome?" he asked. He always called his
+brother-in-law Mr. Jerome, to indicate the gulf between them. Barbara
+gave a little spurt of laughter.
+
+"Yes, his excellency is quite well," she said. "You must call him
+excellency now, my dear."
+
+"Indeed! That is a great step."
+
+"Considering that Tony began as an office-boy. How richly rewarding you
+are, my dear. And shan't I make an odd ambassadress! I haven't been to a
+Court since the dark ages, when I went to those beloved States. We will
+practise after dinner, dear, and you and Marion shall be the King and
+Queen, and I will try to walk backwards without tumbling on my head. You
+will like being the King, Robert. And then we will be ourselves again,
+all except Og, who shall be Tony and shall go out of the room before
+you."
+
+He gave his treble little giggle, for on the whole it answered better
+not to be dignified with Barbara, whenever he could remember not to
+be; and Lady Ashbridge, still nursing Petsy, threw a bombshell of the
+obvious to explode the conversation.
+
+"Og has two mutton-chops for his dinner," she said, "and he is growing
+still. Fancy!"
+
+Lord Ashbridge took a refreshing glance at the broad stretch of country
+that all belonged to him.
+
+"I am rather glad to have this opportunity of talking to you, my dear
+Barbara," he said, "before Michael comes."
+
+"His train gets in half an hour before dinner" said Lady Ashbridge. "He
+has to change at Stoneborough."
+
+"Quite so. I heard from Michael this morning, saying that he has
+resigned his commission in the Guards, and is going to take up music
+seriously."
+
+Barbara gave a delighted exclamation.
+
+"But how perfectly splendid!" she said. "Fancy a Comber doing anything
+original! Michael and I are the only Combers who ever have, since
+Combers 'arose from out the azure main' in the year one. I married an
+American; that's something, though it's not up to Michael!"
+
+"That is not quite my view of it," said he. "As for its being original,
+it would be original enough if Marion eloped with a Patagonian."
+
+Lady Ashbridge let fall her embroidery at this monstrous suggestion.
+
+"You are talking very wildly, Robert," she said, in a pained voice.
+
+"My dear, get on with your sacred carpet," said he. "I am talking to
+Barbara. I have already ascertained your--your lack of views on the
+subject. I was saying, Barbara, that mere originality is not a merit."
+
+"No, you never said that," remarked Lady Ashbridge.
+
+"I should have if you had allowed me to. And as for your saying that he
+has done it, Barbara, that is very wide of the mark, and I intend shall
+continue to be so."
+
+"Dear great Bashaw, that is just what you said to me when I told you
+I was going to marry his Excellency. But I did. And I think it is a
+glorious move on Michael's part. It requires brain to find out what you
+like, and character to go and do it. Combers haven't got brains as
+a rule, you see. If they ever had any, they have degenerated into
+conservative instincts."
+
+He again refreshed himself with the landscape. The roofs of Ashbridge
+were visible in the clear sunset. . . . Ashbridge paid its rents with
+remarkable regularity.
+
+"That may or may not be so," he said, forgetting for a moment the danger
+of being dignified. "But Combers have position."
+
+Barbara controlled herself admirably. A slight tremor shook her, which
+he did not notice.
+
+"Yes, dear," she said. "I allow that Combers have had for many
+generations a sort of acquisitive cunning, for all we possess has
+come to us by exceedingly prudent marriages. They have also--I am an
+exception here--the gift of not saying very much, which certainly has an
+impressive effect, even when it arises from not having very much to say.
+They are sticky; they attract wealth, and they have the force called vis
+inertiae, which means that they invest their money prudently. You should
+hear Tony--well, perhaps you had better not hear Tony. But now here
+is Michael showing that he has got tastes. Can you wonder that I'm
+delighted? And not only has he got tastes, but he has the strength of
+character to back them. Michael, in the Guards too! It was a perfect
+farce, and he's had the sense to see it. He hated his duties, and he
+hated his diversions. Now Francis--"
+
+"I am afraid Michael has always been a little jealous of Francis,"
+remarked his father.
+
+This roused Barbara; she spoke quite seriously:
+
+"If you really think that, my dear," she said, "you have the distinction
+of being the worst possible judge of character that the world has ever
+known. Michael might be jealous of anybody else, for the poor boy feels
+his physical awkwardness most sensitively, but Francis is just the one
+person he really worships. He would do anything in the world for him."
+
+The discussion with Barbara was being even more fruitless than that with
+his wife, and Lord Ashbridge rose.
+
+"All I can do, then, is to ask you not to back Michael up," he said.
+
+"My dear, he won't need backing up. He's a match for you by himself. But
+if Michael, after thoroughly worsting you, asks me my opinion, I shall
+certainly give it him. But he won't ask my opinion first. He will strew
+your limbs, Robert, over this delightful terrace."
+
+"Michael's train is late," said Lady Ashbridge, hearing the stable clock
+strike. "He should have been here before this."
+
+Barbara had still a word to say, and disregarded this quencher.
+
+"But don't think, Robert," she said, "that because Michael resists your
+wishes and authority, he will be enjoying himself. He will hate doing
+it, but that will not stop him."
+
+Lord Ashbridge was not a bully; he had merely a profound sense of his
+own importance.
+
+"We will see about resistance," he said.
+
+Barbara was not so successful on this occasion, and exploded loudly:
+
+"You will, dear, indeed," she said.
+
+
+Michael meantime had been travelling down from London without perturbing
+himself over the scene with his father which he knew lay before him.
+This was quite characteristic of him; he had a singular command over his
+imagination when he had made up his mind to anything, and never indulged
+in the gratuitous pain of anticipation. Today he had an additional
+bulwark against such self-inflicted worries, for he had spent his last
+two hours in town at the vocal recital of a singer who a month before
+had stirred the critics into rhapsody over her gift of lyric song.
+Up till now he had had no opportunity of hearing her; and, with the
+panegyrics that had been showered on her in his mind, he had gone with
+the expectation of disappointment. But now, an hour afterwards, the
+wheels of the train sang her songs, and in the inward ear he could
+recapture, with the vividness of an hallucination, the timbre of
+that wonderful voice and also the sweet harmonies of the pianist who
+accompanied her.
+
+The hall had been packed from end to end, and he had barely got to his
+seat, the only one vacant in the whole room, when Miss Sylvia Falbe
+appeared, followed at once by her accompanist, whose name occurred
+nowhere on the programme. Two neighbours, however, who chatted shrilly
+during the applause that greeted them, informed him that this was
+Hermann, "dear Hermann; there is no one like him!" But it occurred to
+Michael that the singer was like him, though she was fair and he dark.
+But his perception of either of them visually was but vague; he had come
+to hear and not to see. Neither she nor Hermann had any music with them,
+and Hermann just glanced at the programme, which he put down on the top
+of the piano, which, again unusually, was open. Then without pause they
+began the set of German songs--Brahms, Schubert, Schumann--with which
+the recital opened. And for one moment, before he lost himself in the
+ecstasy of hearing, Michael found himself registering the fact that
+Sylvia Falbe had one of the most charming faces he had ever seen. The
+next he was swallowed up in melody.
+
+She had the ease of the consummate artist, and each note, like the gates
+of the New Jerusalem, was a pearl, round and smooth and luminous almost,
+so that it was as if many-coloured light came from her lips. Nor was
+that all; it seemed as if the accompaniment was made by the song itself,
+coming into life with the freshness of the dawn of its creation; it was
+impossible to believe that one mind directed the singer and another the
+pianist, and if the voice was an example of art in excelsis, not less
+exalted was the perfection of the player. Not for a moment through the
+song did he take his eyes off her; he looked at her with an intensity of
+gaze that seemed to be reading the emotion with which the lovely melody
+filled her. For herself, she looked straight out over the hall, with
+grey eyes half-closed, and mouth that in the pauses of her song was
+large and full-lipped, generously curving, and face that seemed lit with
+the light of the morning she sang of. She was the song; Michael thought
+of her as just that, and the pianist who watched and understood her so
+unerringly was the song, too. They had for him no identity of their own;
+they were as remote from everyday life as the mind of Schumann which
+they made so vivid. It was then that they existed.
+
+The last song of the group she sang in English, for it was "Who is
+Sylvia?" There was a buzz of smiles and whispers among the front row in
+the pause before it, and regaining her own identity for a moment, she
+smiled at a group of her friends among whom clearly it was a cliche
+species of joke that she should ask who Sylvia was, and enumerate her
+merits, when all the time she was Sylvia. Michael felt rather impatient
+at this; she was not anybody just now but a singer. And then came the
+divine inevitable simplicity of perfect words and the melody preordained
+for them. The singer, as he knew, was German, but she had no trace of
+foreign accent. It seemed to him that this was just one miracle the
+more; she had become English because she was singing what Shakespeare
+wrote.
+
+The next group, consisting of modern French songs, appeared to Michael
+utterly unworthy of the singer and the echoing piano. If you had it in
+you to give reality to great and simple things, it was surely a waste
+to concern yourself with these little morbid, melancholy manikins, these
+marionettes. But his emotions being unoccupied he attended more to the
+manner of the performance, and in especial to the marvellous technique,
+not so much of the singer, but of the pianist who caused the rain to
+fall and the waters reflect the toneless grey skies. He had never, even
+when listening to the great masters, heard so flawless a comprehension
+as this anonymous player, incidentally known as Hermann, exhibited. As
+far as mere manipulation went, it was, as might perhaps be expected,
+entirely effortless, but effortless no less was the understanding of the
+music. It happened. . . . It was like that.
+
+All of this so filled Michael's mind as he travelled down that evening
+to Ashbridge, that he scarcely remembered the errand on which he went,
+and when it occurred to him it instantly sank out of sight again, lost
+in the recollection of the music which he had heard to-day and which
+belonged to the art that claimed the allegiance of his soul. The rattle
+of the wheels was alchemised into song, and as with half-closed eyes he
+listened to it, there swam across it now the full face of the singer,
+now the profile of the pianist, that had stood out white and intent
+against the dark panelling behind his head. He had gleaned one fact at
+the box-office as he hurried out to catch his train: this Hermann was
+the singer's brother, a teacher of the piano in London, and apparently
+highly thought of.
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Michael's train, as his mother had so infallibly pronounced, was late,
+and he had arrived only just in time to hurry to his room and dress
+quickly, in order not to add to his crimes the additional one of
+unpunctuality, for unpunctuality, so Lord Ashbridge held, was the
+politeness not only of kings, but of all who had any pretence to decent
+breeding. His father gave him a carefully-iced welcome, his mother
+the tip of her long, camel-like lips, and they waited solemnly for the
+appearance of Aunt Barbara, who, it would seem, had forfeited her claims
+to family by her marriage. A man-servant and a half looked after each
+of them at dinner, and the twelve Lord Ashbridges in uniform looked down
+from their illuminated frames on their degenerate descendant.
+
+The only bright spot in this portentous banquet was Aunt Barbara, who
+had chosen that evening, with what intention may possibly be guessed, to
+put on an immense diamond tiara and a breastplate of rubies, while Og,
+after one futile attempt to play with the footmen, yielded himself up to
+the chilling atmosphere of good breeding, and ate his mutton-chops
+with great composure. But Aunt Barbara, fortified by her gems, ate an
+excellent dinner, and talked all the time with occasional bursts of
+unexplained laughter.
+
+Afterwards, when Michael was left alone with his father, he found that
+his best efforts at conversation elicited only monosyllabic replies, and
+at last, in the despairing desire to bring things to a head, he asked
+him if he had received his letter. An affirmative monosyllable, followed
+by the hissing of Lord Ashbridge's cigarette end as he dropped it into
+his coffee cup, answered him, and he perceived that the approaching
+storm was to be rendered duly impressive by the thundery stillness that
+preceded it. Then his father rose, and as he passed Michael, who held
+the door open for him, said:
+
+"If you can spare the time, Michael, I would like to have a talk with
+you when your mother and aunt have gone to bed."
+
+That was not very long delayed; Michael imagined that Aunt Barbara must
+have had a hint, for before half-past ten she announced with a skilfully
+suppressed laugh that she was about to retire, and kissed Michael
+affectionately. Both her laugh and her salute were encouraging; he felt
+that he was being backed up. Then a procession of footmen came into the
+room bearing lemonade and soda water and whiskey and a plate of plain
+biscuits, and the moment after he was alone with his father.
+
+Lord Ashbridge rose and walked, very tall and majestic, to the
+fireplace, where he stood for a moment with his back to his son. Then he
+turned round.
+
+"Now about this nonsense of your resigning your commission, Michael,"
+he said. "I don't propose to argue about it, and I am just going to tell
+you. If, as you have informed me, you have actually sent it in, you will
+write to-morrow with due apologies and ask that it may be withdrawn. I
+will see your letter before you send it."
+
+Michael had intended to be as quiet and respectful as possible,
+consistent with firmness, but a sentence here gave him a spasm of anger.
+
+"I don't know what you mean, sir," he said, "by saying 'if I have sent
+it in.' You have received my letter in which I tell you that I have done
+so."
+
+Already, even at the first words, there was bad blood between them.
+Michael's face had clouded with that gloom which his father would
+certainly call sulky, and for himself he resented the tone of Michael's
+reply. To make matters worse he gave his little falsetto cackle, which
+no doubt was intended to convey the impression of confident good humour.
+But there was, it must be confessed, very little good humour about
+it, though he still felt no serious doubt about the result of this
+interview.
+
+"I'm afraid, perhaps, then, that I did not take your letter quite
+seriously, my dear Michael," he said, in the bantering tone that froze
+Michael's cordiality completely up. "I glanced through it; I saw a lot
+of nonsense--or so it struck me--about your resigning your commission
+and studying music; I think you mentioned Baireuth, and settling down in
+London afterwards."
+
+"Yes. I said all that," said Michael. "But you make a mistake if you do
+not see that it was written seriously."
+
+His father glanced across at him, where he sat with his heavy, plain
+face, his long arms and short legs, and the sight merely irritated
+him. With his passion for convention (and one of the most important
+conventions was that Combers should be fine, strapping, normal people)
+he hated the thought that it was his son who presented that appearance.
+And his son's mind seemed to him at this moment as ungainly as his
+person. Again, very unwisely, he laughed, still thinking to carry this
+off by the high hand.
+
+"Yes, but I can't take that rubbish seriously," he said. "I am asking
+your permission now to inquire, without any nonsense, into what you
+mean."
+
+Michael frowned. He felt the insincerity of his father's laugh, and
+rebelled against the unfairness of it. The question, he knew well, was
+sarcastically asked, the flavour of irony in the "permission to inquire"
+was not there by accident. To speak like that implied contempt of his
+opposition; he felt that he was being treated like a child over some
+nursery rebellion, in which, subsequently, there is no real possibility
+of disobedience. He felt his anger rising in spite of himself.
+
+"If you refer to it as rubbish, sir, there is the end of the matter."
+
+"Ah! I thought we should soon agree," said Lord Ashbridge, chuckling.
+
+"You mistake me," said Michael. "There is the end of the matter, because
+I won't discuss it any more, if you treat me like this. I will say good
+night, if you intend to persist in the idea that you can just brush my
+resolves away like that."
+
+This clearly took his father aback; it was a perfectly dignified and
+proper attitude to take in the face of ridicule, and Lord Ashbridge,
+though somewhat an adept at the art of self-deception--as, for instance,
+when he habitually beat the golf professional--could not disguise from
+himself that his policy had been to laugh and blow away Michael's absurd
+ideas. But it was abundantly clear at this moment that this apparently
+easy operation was out of his reach.
+
+He got up with more amenity in his manner than he had yet shown,
+and laid his hand on Michael's shoulder as he stood in front of him,
+evidently quite prepared to go away.
+
+"Come, my dear Michael. This won't do," he said. "I thought it best
+to treat your absurd schemes with a certain lightness, and I have only
+succeeded in irritating you."
+
+Michael was perfectly aware that he had scored. And as his object was to
+score he made another criticism.
+
+"When you say 'absurd schemes,' sir," he said, with quiet respect, "are
+you not still laughing at them?"
+
+Lord Ashbridge again retreated strategically.
+
+"Very well; I withdraw absurd," he said. "Now sit down again, and we
+will talk. Tell me what is in your mind."
+
+Michael made a great effort with himself. He desired, in the secret,
+real Michael, to be reasonable and cordial, to behave filially, while
+all the time his nerves were on edge with his father's ridicule, and
+with his instinctive knowledge of his father's distaste for him.
+
+"Well, it's like this, father," he said. "I'm doing no good as I am. I
+went into the Guards, as you know, because it was the right thing to do.
+A business man's son is put into business for the same reason. And I'm
+not good at it."
+
+Michael paused a moment.
+
+"My heart isn't in it," he said, "and I dislike it. It seems to me
+useless. We're for show. And my heart is quite entirely in music. It's
+the thing I care for more than anything else."
+
+Again he paused; all that came so easily to his tongue when he was
+speaking to Francis was congealed now when he felt the contempt with
+which, though unexpressed, he knew he inspired his father.
+
+Lord Ashbridge waited with careful politeness, his eyes fixed on the
+ceiling, his large person completely filling his chair, just as his
+atmosphere filled the room. He said nothing at all until the silence
+rang in Michael's ears.
+
+"That is all I can tell you," he said at length.
+
+Lord Ashbridge carefully conveyed the ash from his cigarette to the
+fireplace before he spoke. He felt that the time had come for his most
+impressive effort.
+
+"Very well, then, listen to me," he said. "What you suffer from,
+Michael, is a mere want of self-confidence and from modesty. You don't
+seem to grasp--I have often noticed this--who you are and what your
+importance is--an importance which everybody is willing to recognise if
+you will only assume it. You have the privileges of your position, which
+you don't sufficiently value, but you have, also, the responsibilities
+of it, which I am afraid you are inclined to shirk. You haven't got the
+large view; you haven't the sense of patriotism. There are a great many
+things in my position--the position into which you will step--which I
+would much sooner be without. But we have received a tradition, and we
+are bound to hand it on intact. You may think that this has nothing
+to do with your being in the Guards, but it has. We"--and he seemed to
+swell a little--"we are bound in honour to take the lead in the service
+of our country, and we must do it whether we like it or not. We have to
+till, with our own efforts, 'our goodly heritage.' You have to learn the
+meaning of such words as patriotism, and caste, and duty."
+
+Lord Ashbridge thought that he was really putting this very well indeed,
+and he had the sustaining consciousness of sincerity. He entirely
+believed what he said, and felt that it must carry conviction to anyone
+who listened to it with anything like an open mind. The only thing that
+he did not allow for was that he personally immensely enjoyed his social
+and dominant position, thinking it indeed the only position which was
+really worth having. This naturally gave an aid to comprehension, and
+he did not take into account that Michael was not so blessed as he, and
+indeed lacked this very superior individual enlightenment. But his own
+words kindled the flame of this illumination, and without noticing the
+blank stolidity of Michael's face he went on with gathering confidence:
+
+"I am sure you are high-minded, my dear Michael," he said. "And it is to
+your high-mindedness that I--yes, I don't mind saying it--that I appeal.
+In a moment of unreflectiveness you have thrown overboard what I am sure
+is real to you, the sense, broadly speaking, that you are English and of
+the highest English class, and have intended to devote yourself to more
+selfish and pleasure-loving aims, and to dwell in a tinkle of pleasant
+sounds that please your ear; and I'm sure I don't wonder, because, as
+your mother and I both know, you play charmingly. But I feel confident
+that your better mind does not really confuse the mere diversions of
+life with its serious issues."
+
+Michael suddenly rose to his feet.
+
+"Father, I'm afraid this is no use at all," he said. "All that I feel,
+and all that I can't say, I know is unintelligible to you. You have
+called it rubbish once, and you think it is rubbish still."
+
+Lord Ashbridge's eloquence was suddenly arrested. He had been cantering
+gleefully along, and had the very distinct impression of having run up
+against a stone wall. He dismounted, hurt, but in no way broken.
+
+"I am anxious to understand you, Michael," he said.
+
+"Yes, father, but you don't," said he. "You have been explaining me all
+wrong. For instance, I don't regard music as a diversion. That is the
+only explanation there is of me."
+
+"And as regards my wishes and my authority?" asked his father.
+
+Michael squared his shoulders and his mind.
+
+"I am exceedingly sorry to disappoint you in the matter of your wishes,"
+he said; "but in the matter of your authority I can't recognise it when
+the question of my whole life is at stake. I know that I am your son,
+and I want to be dutiful, but I have my own individuality as well. That
+only recognises the authority of my own conscience."
+
+That seemed to Lord Ashbridge both tragic and ludicrous. Completely
+subservient himself to the conventions which he so much enjoyed, it was
+like the defiance of a child to say such things. He only just checked
+himself from laughing again.
+
+"I refuse to take that answer from you," he said.
+
+"I have no other to give you," said Michael. "But I should like to say
+once more that I am sorry to disobey your wishes."
+
+The repetition took away his desire to laugh. In fact, he could not have
+laughed.
+
+"I don't want to threaten you, Michael," he said. "But you may know that
+I have a very free hand in the disposal of my property."
+
+"Is that a threat?" asked Michael.
+
+"It is a hint."
+
+"Then, father, I can only say that I should be perfectly satisfied with
+anything you may do," said Michael. "I wish you could leave everything
+you have to Francis. I tell you in all sincerity that I wish he had been
+my elder brother. You would have been far better pleased with him."
+
+Lord Ashbridge's anger rose. He was naturally so self-complacent as to
+be seldom disposed to anger, but its rarity was not due to kindliness of
+nature.
+
+"I have before now noticed your jealousy of your cousin," he observed.
+
+Michael's face went white.
+
+"That is infamous and untrue, father," he said.
+
+Lord Ashbridge turned on him.
+
+"Apologise for that," he said.
+
+Michael looked up at his high towering without a tremor.
+
+"I wait for the withdrawal of your accusation that I am jealous of
+Francis," he replied.
+
+There was a dead silence. Lord Ashbridge stood there in swollen and
+speechless indignation, and Michael faced him undismayed. . . . And then
+suddenly to the boy there came an impulse of pure pity for his father's
+disappointment in having a son like himself. He saw with the candour
+which was so real a part of him how hopeless it must be, to a man of his
+father's mind, to have a millstone like himself unalterably bound round
+his neck, fit to choke and drown him.
+
+"Indeed, I am not jealous of Francis, father," he said, "and I speak
+quite truthfully when I say how I sympathise with you in having a son
+like me. I don't want to vex you. I want to make the best of myself."
+
+Lord Ashbridge stood looking exactly like his statue in the market-place
+at Ashbridge.
+
+"If that is the case, Michael," he said, "it is within your power. You
+will write the letter I spoke about."
+
+Michael paused a moment as if waiting for more. It did not seem to him
+possible that his appeal should bear no further fruit than that. But it
+was soon clear that there was no more to come.
+
+"I will wish you good night, father," he said.
+
+
+Sunday was a day on which Lord Ashbridge was almost more himself than
+during the week, so shining and public an example did he become of
+the British nobleman. Instead of having breakfast, according to the
+middle-class custom, rather later than usual, that solid sausagy meal
+was half an hour earlier, so that all the servants, except those whose
+presence in the house was imperatively necessary for purposes of lunch,
+should go to church. Thus "Old George" and Lord Ashbridge's private boat
+were exceedingly busy for the half-hour preceding church time, the last
+boat-load holding the family, whose arrival was the signal for service
+to begin. Lady Ashbridge, however, always went on earlier, for she
+presided at the organ with the long, camel-like back turned towards the
+congregation, and started playing a slow, melancholy voluntary when the
+boy who blew the bellows said to her in an ecclesiastical whisper: "His
+lordship has arrived, my lady." Those of the household who could sing
+(singing being construed in the sense of making a loud and cheerful
+noise in the throat) clustered in the choir-pews near the organ, while
+the family sat in a large, square box, with a stove in the centre, amply
+supplied with prayer-books of the time when even Protestants might pray
+for Queen Caroline. Behind them, separated from the rest of the church
+by an ornamental ironwork grille, was the Comber chapel, in which
+antiquarians took nearly as much pleasure as Lord Ashbridge himself.
+Here reclined a glorious company of sixteenth century knights, with
+their honourable ladies at their sides, unyielding marble bolsters at
+their heads, and grotesque dogs at their feet. Later, when their peerage
+was conferred, they lost a little of their yeoman simplicity, and became
+peruked and robed and breeched; one, indeed, in the age of George III.,
+who was blessed with poetical aspirations, appeared in bare feet and a
+Roman toga with a scroll of manuscript in his hand; while later again,
+mere tablets on the walls commemorated their almost uncanny virtues.
+
+And just on the other side of the grille, but a step away, sat the
+present-day representatives of the line, while Lady Ashbridge finished
+the last bars of her voluntary, Lord Ashbridge himself and his sister,
+large and smart and comely, and Michael beside them, short and heavy,
+with his soul full of the aspirations his father neither could nor cared
+to understand. According to his invariable custom, Lord Ashbridge read
+the lessons in a loud, sonorous voice, his large, white hands grasping
+the wing-feathers of the brass eagle, and a great carnation in his
+buttonhole; and when the time came for the offertory he put a sovereign
+in the open plate himself, and proceeded with his minuet-like step to go
+round the church and collect the gifts of the encouraged congregation.
+He followed all the prayers in his book, he made the responses in a
+voice nearly as loud as that in which he read the lessons; he sang the
+hymns with a curious buzzing sound, and never for a moment did he lose
+sight of the fact that he was the head of the Comber family, doing his
+duty as the custom of the Combers was, and setting an example of godly
+piety. Afterwards, as usual, he would change his black coat, eat a good
+lunch, stroll round the gardens (for he had nothing to say to golf on
+Sunday), and in the evening the clergyman would dine with him, and
+would be requested to say grace both before and after the meal. He knew
+exactly the proper mode of passing the Sunday for the landlord on his
+country estate, and when Lord Ashbridge knew that a thing was proper he
+did it with invariable precision.
+
+Michael, of course, was in disgrace; his father, pending some further
+course of action, neither spoke to him nor looked at him; indeed, it
+seemed doubtful whether he would hand him the offertory plate, and
+it was perhaps a pity that he unbent even to this extent, for Michael
+happened to have none of the symbols of thankfulness about his person,
+and he saw a slight quiver pass through Aunt Barbara's hymn-book. After
+a rather portentous lunch, however, there came some relief, for his
+father did not ask his company on the usual Sunday afternoon stroll, and
+Aunt Barbara never walked at all unless she was obliged. In consequence,
+when the thunderstorm had stepped airily away across the park, Michael
+joined her on the terrace, with the intention of talking the situation
+over with her.
+
+Aunt Barbara was perfectly willing to do this, and she opened the
+discussion very pleasantly with peals of laughter.
+
+"My dear, I delight in you," she said; "and altogether this is the most
+entertaining day I have ever spent here. Combers are supposed to be very
+serious, solid people, but for unconscious humour there isn't a family
+in England or even in the States to compare with them. Our lunch just
+now; if you could put it into a satirical comedy called The Aristocracy
+it would make the fortune of any theatre."
+
+A dawning smile began to break through Michael's tragedy face.
+
+"I suppose it was rather funny," he said. "But really I'm wretched about
+it, Aunt Barbara."
+
+"My dear, what is there to be wretched about? You might have been
+wretched if you had found you couldn't stand up to your father, but I
+gather, though I know nothing directly, that you did. At least, your
+mother has said to me three times, twice on the way to church and once
+coming back: 'Michael has vexed his father very much.' And the offertory
+plate, my dear, and, as I was saying, lunch! I am in disgrace too,
+because I said perfectly plainly yesterday that I was on your side; and
+there we were at lunch, with your father apparently unable to see either
+you or me, and unconscious of our presence. Fancy pretending not to see
+me! You can't help seeing me, a large, bright object like me! And what
+will happen next? That's what tickles me to death, as they say on my
+side of the Atlantic. Will he gradually begin to perceive us again, like
+objects looming through a fog, or shall we come into view suddenly, as
+if going round a corner? And you are just as funny, my dear, with your
+long face, and air of depressed determination. Why be heavy, Michael? So
+many people are heavy, and none of them can tell you why."
+
+It was impossible not to feel the unfreezing effect of this. Michael
+thawed to it, as he would have thawed to Francis.
+
+"Perhaps they can't help it, Aunt Barbara," he said. "At least, I know I
+can't. I really wish I could learn how to. I--I don't see the funny side
+of things till it is pointed out. I thought lunch a sort of hell, you
+know. Of course, it was funny, his appearing not to see either of
+us. But it stands for more than that; it stands for his complete
+misunderstanding of me."
+
+Aunt Barbara had the sense to see that the real Michael was speaking.
+When people were being unreal, when they were pompous or adopting
+attitudes, she could attend to nothing but their absurdity, which
+engrossed her altogether. But she never laughed at real things; real
+things were not funny, but were facts.
+
+"He quite misunderstands," went on Michael, with the eagerness with
+which the shy welcome comprehension. "He thinks I can make my mind
+like his if I choose; and if I don't choose, or rather can't choose, he
+thinks that his wishes, his authority, should be sufficient to make
+me act as if it was. Well, I won't do that. He may go on,"--and that
+pleasant smile lit up Michael's plain face--"he may go on being unaware
+of my presence as long as he pleases. I am very sorry it should be so,
+but I can't help it. And the worst of it is, that opposition of that
+sort--his sort--makes me more determined than ever."
+
+Aunt Barbara nodded.
+
+"And your friends?" she asked. "What will they think?"
+
+Michael looked at her quite simply and directly.
+
+"Friends?" he said. "I haven't got any."
+
+"Ah, my dear, that's nonsense!" she said.
+
+"I wish it was. Oh, Francis is a friend, I know. He thinks me an odd
+old thing, but he likes me. Other people don't. And I can't see why they
+should. I'm sure it's my fault. It's because I'm heavy. You said I was,
+yourself."
+
+"Then I was a great ass," remarked Aunt Barbara. "You wouldn't be heavy
+with people who understood you. You aren't heavy with me, for instance;
+but, my dear, lead isn't in it when you are with your father."
+
+"But what am I to do, if I'm like that?" asked the boy.
+
+She held up her large, fat hand, and marked the points off on her
+fingers.
+
+"Three things," she said. "Firstly, get away from people who don't
+understand you, and whom, incidentally, you don't understand. Secondly,
+try to see how ridiculous you and everybody else always are; and,
+thirdly, which is much the most important, don't think about yourself.
+If I thought about myself I should consider how old and fat and ugly
+I am. I'm not ugly, really; you needn't be foolish and tell me so. I
+should spoil my life by trying to be young, and only eating devilled
+codfish and drinking hot plum-juice, or whatever is the accepted remedy
+for what we call obesity. We're all odd old things, as you say. We can
+only get away from that depressing fact by doing something, and not
+thinking about ourselves. We can all try not to be egoists. Egoism is
+the really heavy quality in the world."
+
+She paused a moment in this inspired discourse and whistled to Og,
+who had stretched his weary limbs across a bed of particularly fine
+geraniums.
+
+"There!" she said, pointing, "if your dog had done that, you would be
+submerged in depression at the thought of how vexed your father would
+be. That would be because you are thinking of the effect on yourself. As
+it's my dog that has done it--dear me, they do look squashed now he has
+got up--you don't really mind about your father's vexation, because you
+won't have to think about yourself. That is wise of you; if you were a
+little wiser still, you would picture to yourself how ridiculous I shall
+look apologising for Og. Kindly kick him, Michael; he will understand.
+Naughty! And as for your not having any friends, that would be
+exceedingly sad, if you had gone the right way to get them and failed.
+But you haven't. You haven't even gone among the people who could be
+your friends. Your friends, broadly speaking, must like the same sort of
+things as you. There must be a common basis. You can't even argue with
+somebody, or disagree with somebody unless you have a common ground to
+start from. If I say that black is white, and you think it is blue, we
+can't get on. It leads nowhere. And, finally--"
+
+She turned round and faced him directly.
+
+"Finally, don't be so cross, my dear," she said.
+
+"But am I?" asked he.
+
+"Yes. You don't know it, or else probably, since you are a very decent
+fellow, you wouldn't be. You expect not to be liked, and that is cross
+of you. A good-humoured person expects to be liked, and almost always
+is. You expect not to be understood, and that's dreadfully cross. You
+think your father doesn't understand you; no more he does, but don't go
+on thinking about it. You think it is a great bore to be your father's
+only son, and wish Francis was instead. That's cross; you may think it's
+fine, but it isn't, and it is also ungrateful. You can have great fun if
+you will only be good-tempered!"
+
+"How did you know that--about Francis, I mean?" asked Michael.
+
+"Does it happen to be true? Of course it does. Every cross young man
+wishes he was somebody else."
+
+"No, not quite that," began Michael.
+
+"Don't interrupt. It is sufficiently accurate. And you think about
+your appearance, my dear. It will do quite well. You might have had two
+noses, or only one eye, whereas you have two rather jolly ones. And do
+try to see the joke in other people, Michael. You didn't see the joke
+in your interview last night with your father. It must have been
+excruciatingly funny. I don't say it wasn't sad and serious as well. But
+it was funny too; there were points."
+
+Michael shook his head.
+
+"I didn't see them," he said.
+
+"But I should have, and I should have been right. All dignity is funny,
+simply because it is sham. When dignity is real, you don't know it's
+dignity. But your father knew he was being dignified, and you knew you
+were being dignified. My dear, what a pair of you!"
+
+Michael frowned.
+
+"But is nothing serious, then?" he asked. "Surely it was serious enough
+last night. There was I in rank rebellion to my father, and it vexed him
+horribly; it did more, it grieved him."
+
+She laid her hand on Michael's knee.
+
+"As if I didn't know that!" she said. "We're all sorry for that, though
+I should have been much sorrier if you had given in and ceased to vex
+him. But there it is! Accept that, and then, my dear, swiftly apply
+yourself to perceive the humour of it. And now, about your plans!"
+
+"I shall go to Baireuth on Wednesday, and then on to Munich," began
+Michael.
+
+"That, of course. Perhaps you may find the humour of a Channel crossing.
+I look for it in vain. Yet I don't know. . . . The man who puts on a
+yachting-cap, and asks if there's a bit of a sea on. It proves to be the
+case, and he is excessively unwell. I must look out for him next time I
+cross. And then?"
+
+"Then I shall settle in town and study. Oh, here's my father coming
+home."
+
+Lord Ashbridge approached down the terrace. He stopped for a moment at
+the desecrated geranium bed, saw the two sitting together, and turned at
+right angles and went into the house. Almost immediately a footman
+came out with a long dog-lead and advanced hesitatingly to Og. Og was
+convinced that he had come to play with him, and crouched and growled
+and retreated and advanced with engaging affability. Out of the windows
+of the library looked Lord Ashbridge's baleful face. . . . Aunt
+Barbara swayed out of her chair, and laid a trembling hand on Michael's
+shoulder.
+
+"I shall go and apologise for Og," she said. "I shall do it quite
+sincerely, my dear. But there are points."
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Michael practised a certain mature and rather elderly precision in the
+ordinary affairs of daily life. His habits were almost unduly tidy and
+punctual; he answered letters by return of post, he never mislaid things
+nor tore up documents which he particularly desired should be preserved;
+he kept his gold in a purse and his change in a trousers-pocket, and in
+matters of travelling he always arrived at stations with plenty of time
+to spare, and had such creature comforts as he desired for his journey
+in a neat Gladstone bag above his head. He never travelled first-class,
+for the very simple and adequate reason that, though very well off,
+he preferred to spend his money in ways that were more productive of
+usefulness or pleasure; and thus, when he took his place in the corner
+of a second-class compartment of the Dover-Ostend express on the
+Wednesday morning following, he was the only occupant of it.
+
+Probably he had never felt so fully at liberty, nor enjoyed a keener
+zest for life and the future. For the first time he had asserted his own
+indisputable right to stand on his own feet, and though he was genuinely
+sorry for his father's chagrin at not being able to tuck him up in
+the family coach, his own sense of independence could not but wave its
+banners. There had been a second interview, no less fruitless than the
+first, and Lord Ashbridge had told him that when next his presence was
+desired at home, he would be informed of the fact. His mother had cried
+in a mild, trickling fashion, but it was quite obvious that in her
+heart of hearts she was more concerned with a bilious attack of peculiar
+intensity that had assailed Petsy. She wished Michael would not be so
+disobedient and vex his father, but she was quite sure that before
+long some formula, in diplomatic phrase, would be found on which
+reconciliation could be based; whereas it was highly uncertain whether
+any formula could be found that would produce the desired effect on
+Petsy, whose illness she attributed to the shock of Og's sudden and
+disconcerting appearance on Saturday, when all Petsy's nervous force
+was required to digest the copious cream. Consequently, though she threw
+reproachful glances at Michael, those directed at Barbara, who was the
+cause of the acuter tragedy, were pointed with more penetrating blame.
+Indeed, it is questionable whether Lady Ashbridge would have cried at
+all over Michael's affairs had not Petsy's also been in so lamentable
+and critical a state.
+
+Just as the train began to move out of the station a young man rushed
+across the platform, eluded the embrace of the guard who attempted to
+stop him with amazing agility, and jumped into Michael's compartment.
+He slammed the door after him, and leaned out, apparently looking for
+someone, whom he soon saw.
+
+"Just caught it, Sylvia," he shouted. "Send on my luggage, will you?
+It's in the taxi still, I think, and I haven't paid the man. Good-bye,
+darling."
+
+He waved to her till the curving line took the platform out of sight,
+and then sat down with a laugh, and eyes of friendly interest for
+Michael.
+
+"Narrow squeak, wasn't it?" he said gleefully. "I thought the guard had
+collared me. And I should have missed Parsifal."
+
+Michael had recognised him at once as he rushed across the platform; his
+shouting to Sylvia had but confirmed the recognition; and here on the
+day of his entering into his new kingdom of liberty was one of its
+citizens almost thrown into his arms. But for the moment his old
+invincible habit of shyness and sensitiveness forbade any responsive
+lightness of welcome, and he was merely formal, merely courteous.
+
+"And all your luggage left behind," he said. "Won't you be dreadfully
+uncomfortable?"
+
+"Uncomfortable? Why?" asked Falbe. "I shall buy a handkerchief and a
+collar every day, and a shirt and a pair of socks every other day till
+it arrives."
+
+Michael felt a sudden, daring impulse. He remembered Aunt Barbara's
+salutary remarks about crossness being the equivalent of thinking about
+oneself. And the effort that it cost him may be taken as the measure of
+his solitary disposition.
+
+"But you needn't do that," he said, "if--if you will be good enough to
+borrow of me till your things come."
+
+He blurted it out awkwardly, almost brusquely, and Falbe looked slightly
+amused at this wholly surprising offer of hospitality.
+
+"But that's awfully good of you," he said, laughing and saying nothing
+direct about his acceptance. "It implies, too, that you are going
+to Baireuth. We travel together, then, I hope, for it is dismal work
+travelling alone, isn't it? My sister tells me that half my friends were
+picked up in railway carriages. Been there before?"
+
+Michael felt himself lured from the ordinary aloofness of attitude and
+demeanour, which had been somewhat accustomed to view all strangers with
+suspicion. And yet, though till this moment he had never spoken to him,
+he could hardly regard Falbe as a stranger, for he had heard him say
+on the piano what his sister understood by the songs of Brahms and
+Schubert. He could not help glancing at Falbe's hands, as they busied
+themselves with the filling and lighting of a pipe, and felt that he
+knew something of those long, broad-tipped fingers, smooth and white and
+strong. The man himself he found to be quite different to what he had
+expected; he had seen him before, eager and intent and anxious-faced,
+absorbed in the task of following another mind; now he looked much
+younger, much more boyish.
+
+"No, it's my first visit to Baireuth," he said, "and I can't tell you
+how excited I am about it. I've been looking forward to it so much that
+I almost expect to be disappointed."
+
+Falbe blew out a cloud of smoke and laughter.
+
+"Oh, you're safe enough," he said. "Baireuth never disappoints. It's
+one of the facts--a reliable fact. And Munich? Do you go to Munich
+afterwards?"
+
+"Yes. I hope so."
+
+Falbe clicked with his tongue
+
+"Lucky fellow," he said. "How I wish I was. But I've got to get back
+again after my week. You'll spend the mornings in the galleries, and the
+afternoons and evenings at the opera. O Lord, Munich!"
+
+He came across from the other side of the carriage and sat next Michael,
+putting his feet up on the seat opposite.
+
+"Talk of Munich," he said. "I was born in Munich, and I happen to know
+that it's the heavenly Jerusalem, neither more nor less."
+
+"Well, the heavenly Jerusalem is practically next door to Baireuth,"
+said Michael.
+
+"I know; but it can't be managed. However, there's a week of unalloyed
+bliss between me now and the desolation of London in August. What is
+so maddening is to think of all the people who could go to Munich and
+don't."
+
+Michael held debate within himself. He felt that he ought to tell his
+new acquaintance that he knew who he was, that, however trivial their
+conversation might be, it somehow resembled eavesdropping to talk to
+a chance fellow-passenger as if he were a complete stranger. But it
+required again a certain effort to make the announcement.
+
+"I think I had better tell you," he said at length, "that I know you,
+that I've listened to you at least, at your sister's recital a few days
+ago."
+
+Falbe turned to him with the friendliest pleasure.
+
+"Ah! were you there?" he asked. "I hope you listened to her, then, not
+to me. She sang well, didn't she?"
+
+"But divinely. At the same time I did listen to you, especially in the
+French songs. There was less song, you know."
+
+Falbe laughed.
+
+"And more accompaniment!" he said. "Perhaps you play?"
+
+Michael was seized with a fit of shyness at the idea of talking to Falbe
+about himself.
+
+"Oh, I just strum," he said.
+
+
+Throughout the journey their acquaintanceship ripened; and casually,
+in dropped remarks, the two began to learn something about each other.
+Falbe's command of English, as well as his sister's, which was so
+complete that it was impossible to believe that a foreigner was
+speaking, was explained, for it came out that his mother was
+English, and that from infancy they had spoken German and English
+indiscriminately. His father, who had died some dozen years before, had
+been a singer of some note in his native land, but was distinguished
+more for his teaching than his practice, and it was he who had taught
+his daughter. Hermann Falbe himself had always intended to be a pianist,
+but the poverty in which they were left at his father's death had
+obliged him to give lessons rather than devote himself to his own
+career; but now at the age of thirty he found himself within sight of
+the competence that would allow him to cut down his pupils, and begin to
+be a pupil again himself.
+
+His sister, moreover, for whom he had slaved for years in order that she
+might continue her own singing education unchecked, was now more than
+able, especially after these last three months in London, where she had
+suddenly leaped into eminence, to support herself and contributed to the
+expenses of their common home. But there was still, so Michael gathered,
+no great superabundance of money, and he guessed that Falbe's inability
+to go to Munich was due to the question of expense.
+
+All this came out by inference and allusion rather than by direct
+information, while Michael, naturally reticent and feeling that his
+own uneventful affairs could have no interest for anybody, was
+less communicative. And, indeed, while shunning the appearance
+of inquisitiveness, he was far too eager to get hold of his new
+acquaintance to think of volunteering much himself. Here to him was this
+citizen of the new country who all his life had lived in the palace of
+art, and that in no dilettante fashion, but with set aim and serious
+purpose. And Falbe abounded in such topics; he knew the singers and
+the musicians of the world, and, which was much more than that, he was
+himself of them; humble, no doubt, in circumstances and achievement as
+yet, but clearly to Michael of the blood royal of artistry. That was
+the essential thing about him as regards his relations with his
+fellow-traveller, though, when next morning the spires of Cologne and
+the swift river of his Fatherland came into sight, he burst out into a
+sort of rhapsody of patriotism that mockingly covered a great sincerity.
+
+"Ah! beloved land!" he cried. "Soil of heaven and of divine harmony!
+Hail to thee! Hail to thee! Rhine, Rhine deep and true and steadfast."
+. . . And he waved his hat and sang the greeting of Brunnhilde. Then he
+turned laughingly to Michael.
+
+"I am sufficiently English to know how ridiculous that must seem to
+you," he said, "for I love England also, and the passengers on the boat
+would merely think me mad if I apostrophised the cliffs of Dover and
+the mud of the English roads. But here I am a German again, and I would
+willingly kiss the soil. You English--we English, I may say, for I am as
+much English as German--I believe have got the same feeling somewhere in
+our hearts, but we lock it up and hide it away. Pray God I shall never
+have to choose to which nation I belong, though for that matter there in
+no choice in it at all, for I am certainly a German subject. Guten Tag,
+Koln; let us instantly have our coffee. There is no coffee like German
+coffee, though the French coffee is undeniably pleasanter to the mere
+superficial palate. But it doesn't touch the heart, as everything German
+touches my heart when I come back to the Fatherland."
+
+He chattered on in tremendous high spirits.
+
+"And to think that to-night we shall sleep in true German beds," he
+said. "I allow that the duvet is not so convenient as blankets, and that
+there is a watershed always up the middle of your bed, so that during
+the night your person descends to one side while the duvet rolls
+down the other; but it is German, which makes up for any trifling
+inconvenience. Baireuth, too; perhaps it will strike you as a dull and
+stinking little town, and so I dare say it is. But after lunch we shall
+go up the hillside to where the theatre stands, at the edge of the
+pine-woods, and from the porch the trumpets will give out the motif of
+the Grail, and we shall pass out of the heat into the cool darkness of
+the theatre. Aren't you thrilled, Comber? Doesn't a holy awe pervade
+you! Are you worthy, do you think?"
+
+All this youthful, unrestrained enthusiasm was a revelation to Michael.
+Intentionally absurd as Falbe's rhapsody on the Fatherland had been,
+Michael knew that it sprang from a solid sincerity which was not ashamed
+of expressing itself. Living, as he had always done, in the rather
+formal and reticent atmosphere of his class and environment, he would
+have thought this fervour of patriotism in an English mouth ridiculous,
+or, if persevered in, merely bad form. Yet when Falbe hailed the Rhine
+and the spires of Cologne, it was clear that there was no bad form about
+it at all. He felt like that; and, indeed, as Michael was beginning to
+perceive, he felt with a similar intensity on all subjects about which
+he felt at all. There was something of the same vivid quality about Aunt
+Barbara, but Aunt Barbara's vividness was chiefly devoted to the hunt
+of the absurdities of her friends, and it was always the concretely
+ridiculous that she pursued. But this handsome, vital young man, with
+his eagerness and his welcome for the world, who had fallen with
+so delightful a cordiality into Michael's company, had already an
+attraction for him of a sort he had never felt before.
+
+Dimly, as the days went by, he began to conjecture that he who had never
+had a friend was being hailed and halloed to, was being ordered, if
+not by precept, at any rate by example, to come out of the shell of his
+reserve, and let himself feel and let himself express. He could see how
+utterly different was Falbe's general conception and practice of
+life from his own; to Michael it had always been a congregation of
+strangers--Francis excepted--who moved about, busy with each other and
+with affairs that had no allure for him, and were, though not uncivil,
+wholly alien to him. He was willing to grant that this alienation, this
+absence of comradeship which he had missed all his life, was of his own
+making, in so far as his shyness and sensitiveness were the cause of it;
+but in effect he had never yet had a friend, because he had never yet
+taken his shutters down, so to speak, or thrown his front door open. He
+had peeped out through chinks, and felt how lonely he was, but he had
+not given anyone a chance to get in.
+
+Falbe, on the other hand, lived at his window, ready to hail the
+passer-by, even as he had hailed Michael, with cheerful words. There
+he lounged in his shirt-sleeves, you might say, with elbows on the
+window-sill; and not from politeness, but from good fellowship, from the
+fact that he liked people, was at home to everybody. He liked people;
+there was the key to it. And Michael, however much he might be capable
+of liking people, had up till now given them no sign of it. It really
+was not their fault if they had not guessed it.
+
+Two days passed, on the first of which Parsifal was given, and on the
+second Meistersinger. On the third there was no performance, and the two
+young men had agreed to meet in the morning and drive out of the town to
+a neighbouring village among the hills, and spend the day there in
+the woods. Michael had looked forward to this day with extraordinary
+pleasure, but there was mingled with it a sort of agony of apprehension
+that Falbe would find him a very boring companion. But the precepts of
+Aunt Barbara came to his mind, and he reflected that the certain and
+sure way of proving a bore was to be taken up with the idea that he
+might be. And anyhow, Falbe had proposed the plan himself.
+
+They lunched in a little restaurant near a forest-enclosed lake, and
+since the day was very hot, did no more than stroll up the hill for a
+hundred yards, where they would get some hint of breeze, and disposed
+themselves at length on the carpet of pine-needles. Through the thick
+boughs overhead the sunlight reached them only in specks and flakes, the
+wind was but as a distant sea in the branches, and Falbe rolled over
+on to his face, and sniffed at the aromatic leaves with the gusto with
+which he enjoyed all that was to him enjoyable.
+
+"Ah; that's good, that's good!" he said. "How I love smells--clean,
+sharp smells like this. But they've got to be wild; you can't tame a
+smell and put it on your handkerchief; it takes the life out of it. Do
+you like smells, Comber?"
+
+"I--I really never thought about it," said Michael.
+
+"Think now, then, and tell me," said Falbe. "If you consider, you know
+such a lot about me, and, as a matter of fact, I know nothing whatever
+about you. I know you like music--I know you like blue trout, because
+you ate so many of them at lunch to-day. But what else do I know about
+you? I don't even know what you thought of Parsifal. No, perhaps I'm
+wrong there, because the fact that you've never mentioned it probably
+shows that you couldn't. The symptom of not understanding anything about
+Parsifal is to talk about it, and say what a tremendous impression it
+has made on you."
+
+"Ah! you've guessed right there," said Michael. "I couldn't talk about
+it; there's nothing to say about it, except that it is Parsifal."
+
+"That's true. It becomes part of you, and you can't talk of it any more
+than you can talk about your elbows and your knees. It's one of the
+things that makes you. . . ."
+
+He turned over on to his back, and laid his hands palm uppermost over
+his eyes.
+
+"That's part of the glory of it all," he said; "that art and its
+emotions become part of you like the food you eat and the wine you
+drink. Art is always making us; it enters into our character and
+destiny. As long as you go on growing you assimilate, and thank God
+one's mind or soul, or whatever you like to call it, goes on growing for
+a long time. I suppose the moment comes to most people when they cease
+to grow, when they become fixed and hard; and that is what we mean by
+being old. But till then you weave your destiny, or, rather, people and
+beauty weave it for you, as you'll see the Norns weaving, and yet you
+never know what you are making. You make what you are, and you never
+are because you are always becoming. You must excuse me; but Germans are
+always metaphysicians, and they can't help it."
+
+"Go on; be German," said Michael.
+
+"Lieber Gott! As if I could be anything else," said Falbe, laughing.
+"We are the only nation which makes a science of experimentalism; we try
+everything, just as a puppy tries everything. It tries mutton bones, and
+match-boxes, and soap and boots; it tries to find out what its tail is
+for, and bites it till it hurts, on which it draws the conclusion that
+it is not meant to eat. Like all metaphysicians, too, and dealers in the
+abstract, we are intensely practical. Our passion for experimentalism
+is dictated by the firm object of using the knowledge we acquire. We
+are tremendously thorough; we waste nothing, not even time, whereas
+the English have an absolute genius for wasting time. Look at all your
+games, your sports, your athletics--I am being quite German now, and
+forgetting my mother, bless her!--they are merely devices for getting
+rid of the hours, and so not having to think. You hate thought as
+a nation, and we live for it. Music is thought; all art is thought;
+commercial prosperity is thought; soldiering is thought."
+
+"And we are a nation of idiots?" asked Michael.
+
+"No; I didn't say that. I should say you are a nation of sensualists.
+You value sensation above everything; you pursue the enjoyable. You are
+a nation of children who are always having a perpetual holiday. You go
+straying all over the world for fun, and annex it generally, so that
+you can have tiger-shooting in India, and lots of gold to pay for your
+tiger-shooting in Africa, and fur from Canada for your coats. But
+it's all a game; not one man in a thousand in England has any idea of
+Empire."
+
+"Oh, I think you are wrong there," said Michael. "You believe that only
+because we don't talk about it. It's--it's like what we agreed about
+Parsifal. We don't talk about it because it is so much part of us."
+
+Falbe sat up.
+
+"I deny it; I deny it flatly," he said. "I know where I get my power of
+foolish, unthinking enjoyment from, and it's from my English blood. I
+rejoice in my English blood, because you are the happiest people on the
+face of the earth. But you are happy because you don't think, whereas
+the joy of being German is that you do think. England is lying in the
+shade, like us, with a cigarette and a drink--I wish I had one--and a
+golf ball or the world with which she has been playing her game. But
+Germany is sitting up all night thinking, and every morning she gives an
+order or two."
+
+Michael supplied the cigarette.
+
+"Do you mean she is thinking about England's golf ball?" asked Michael.
+
+"Why, of course she is! What else is there to think about?"
+
+"Oh, it's impossible that there should be a European war," said Michael,
+"for that is what it will mean!"
+
+"And why is a European war impossible?" demanded Falbe, lighting his
+cigarette.
+
+"It's simply unthinkable!"
+
+"Because you don't think," he interrupted. "I can tell you that the
+thought of war is never absent for a single day from the average German
+mind. We are all soldiers, you see. We start with that. You start by
+being golfers and cricketers. But 'der Tag' is never quite absent
+from the German mind. I don't say that all you golfers and cricketers
+wouldn't make good soldiers, but you've got to be made. You can't be a
+golfer one day and a soldier the next."
+
+Michael laughed.
+
+"As for that," he said, "I made an uncommonly bad soldier. But I am an
+even worse golfer. As for cricket--"
+
+Falbe again interrupted.
+
+"Ah, then at last I know two things about you," he said. "You were a
+soldier and you can't play golf. I have never known so little about
+anybody after three--four days. However, what is our proverb? 'Live and
+learn.' But it takes longer to learn than to live. Eh, what nonsense I
+talk."
+
+He spoke with a sudden irritation, and the laugh at the end of his
+speech was not one of amusement, but rather of mockery. To Michael this
+mood was quite inexplicable, but, characteristically, he looked about in
+himself for the possible explanation of it.
+
+"But what's the matter?" he asked. "Have I annoyed you somehow? I'm
+awfully sorry."
+
+Falbe did not reply for a moment.
+
+"No, you've not annoyed me," he said. "I've annoyed myself. But that's
+the worst of living on one's nerves, which is the penalty of Baireuth.
+There is no charge, so to speak, except for your ticket, but a
+collection is made, as happens at meetings, and you pay with your
+nerves. You must cancel my annoyance, please. If I showed it I did not
+mean to."
+
+Michael pondered over this.
+
+"But I can't leave it like that," he said at length. "Was it about the
+possibility of war, which I said was unthinkable?"
+
+Falbe laughed and turned on his elbow towards Michael.
+
+"No, my dear chap," he said. "You may believe it to be unthinkable, and
+I may believe it to be inevitable; but what does it matter what either
+of us believes? Che sara sara. It was quite another thing that caused me
+to annoy myself. It does not matter."
+
+Michael lay back on the soft slope.
+
+"Yet I insist on knowing," he said. "That is, I mean, if it is not
+private."
+
+Falbe lay quietly with his long fingers in the sediment of pine-needles.
+
+"Well, then, as it is not private, and as you insist," he said, "I will
+certainly tell you. Does it not strike you that you are behaving like an
+absolute stranger to me? We have talked of me and my home and my
+plans all the time since we met at Victoria Station, and you have kept
+complete silence about yourself. I know nothing of you, not who you are,
+or what you are, or what your flag is. You fly no flag, you proclaim no
+identity. You may be a crossing-sweeper, or a grocer, or a marquis for
+all I know. Of course, that matters very little; but what does matter is
+that never for a moment have you shown me not what you happen to be,
+but what you are. I've got the impression that you are something, that
+there's a real 'you' in your inside. But you don't let me see it. You
+send a polite servant to the door when I knock. Probably this sounds
+very weird and un-English to you. But to my mind it is much more weird
+to behave as you are behaving. Come out, can't you. Let's look at you."
+
+It was exactly that--that brusque, unsentimental appeal--that Michael
+needed. He saw himself at that moment, as Falbe saw him, a shelled and
+muffled figure, intangible and withdrawn, but observing, as it were,
+through eye-holes, and giving nothing in exchange for what he saw.
+
+"I'm sorry," he said. "It's quite true what you tell me. I'm like that.
+But it really has never struck me that anybody cared to know."
+
+Falbe ceased digging his excavation in the pine-needles and looked up on
+Michael.
+
+"Good Lord, man!" he said; "people care if you'll only allow them to.
+The indifference of other people is a false term for the secretiveness
+of oneself. How can they care, unless you let them know what there is to
+care for?"
+
+"But I'm completely uninteresting," said Michael.
+
+"Yes; I'll judge of that," said Falbe.
+
+
+Slowly, and with diffident pauses, Michael began to speak of himself,
+feeling at first as if he was undressing in public. But as he went on
+he became conscious of the welcome that his story received, though that
+welcome only expressed itself in perfectly unemotional monosyllables. He
+might be undressing, but he was undressing in front of a fire. He knew
+that he uncovered himself to no icy blast or contemptuous rain, as he
+had felt when, so few days before, he had spoken of himself and what
+he was to his father. There was here the common land of music to build
+upon, whereas to Lord Ashbridge that same soil had been, so to speak,
+the territory of the enemy. And even more than that, there was the
+instinct, the certain conviction that he was telling his tale to
+sympathetic ears, to which the mere fact that he was speaking of himself
+presupposed a friendly hearing. Falbe, he felt, wanted to know about
+him, regardless of the nature of his confessions. Had he said that he
+was an undetected kleptomaniac, Falbe would have liked to know, have
+been pleased at any tidings, provided only they were authentic. This
+seemed to reveal itself to him even as he spoke; it had been there
+waiting for him to claim it, lying there as in a poste restante, only
+ready for its owner.
+
+At the end Falbe gave a long sigh.
+
+"And why the devil didn't you give me any hint of it before?" he asked.
+
+"I didn't think it mattered," said Michael.
+
+"Well, then, you are amazingly wrong. Good Lord, it's about the most
+interesting thing I've ever heard. I didn't know anybody could escape
+from that awful sort of prison-house in which our--I'm English now--in
+which our upper class immures itself. Yet you've done it. I take it that
+the thing is done now?"
+
+"I'm not going back into the prison-house again, if you mean that," said
+Michael.
+
+"And will your father cut you off?" asked he.
+
+"Oh, I haven't the least idea," said Michael.
+
+"Aren't you going to inquire?"
+
+Michael hesitated.
+
+"No, I'm sure I'm not," he said. "I can't do that. It's his business.
+I couldn't ask about what he had done, or meant to do. It's a sort
+of pride, I suppose. He will do as he thinks proper, and when he has
+thought, perhaps he will tell me what he intends."
+
+"But, then, how will you live?" asked Falbe.
+
+"Oh, I forgot to tell you that. I've got some money, quite a lot, I
+mean, from my grandmother. In some ways I rather wish I hadn't. It would
+have been a proof of sincerity to have become poor. That wouldn't have
+made the smallest difference to my resolution."
+
+Falbe laughed.
+
+"And so you are rich, and yet go second-class," he said. "If I were rich
+I would make myself exceedingly comfortable. I like things that are
+good to eat and soft to touch. But I'm bound to say that I get on
+quite excellently without them. Being poor does not make the smallest
+difference to one's happiness, but only to the number of one's
+pleasures."
+
+Michael paused a moment, and then found courage to say what for the last
+two days he had been longing to give utterance to.
+
+"I know; but pleasures are very nice things," he said. "And doesn't it
+seem obvious now that you are coming to Munich with me? It's a purely
+selfish suggestion on my part. After being with you it will be very
+stupid to be alone there. But it would be so delightful if you would
+come."
+
+Falbe looked at him a moment without speaking, but Michael saw the light
+in his eyes.
+
+"And what if I have my pride too?" he said. "Then I shall apologise for
+having made the proposal," said Michael simply.
+
+For just a second more Falbe hesitated. Then he held out his hand.
+
+"I thank you most awfully," he said. "I accept with the greatest
+pleasure."
+
+Michael drew a long breath of relief.
+
+"I am glad," he said. "So that's settled. It's really nice of you."
+
+The heat of the day was passing off, and over the sun-bleached plain the
+coolness of evening was beginning to steal. Overhead the wind stirred
+more resonantly in the pines, and in the bushes birds called to each
+other. Presently after, they rose from where they had lain all the
+afternoon and strolled along the needled slope to where, through a vista
+in the trees, they looked down on the lake and the hamlet that clustered
+near it. Down the road that wound through the trees towards it passed
+labourers going homeward from their work, with cheerful guttural cries
+to each other and a herd of cows sauntered by with bells melodiously
+chiming, taking leisurely mouthfuls from the herbage of the wayside.
+In the village, lying low in the clear dusk, scattered lights began to
+appear, the smoke of evening fires to ascend, and the aromatic odour of
+the burning wood strayed towards them up the wind.
+
+Falbe, whose hand lay in the crook of Michael's arm, pointed downwards
+to the village that lay there sequestered and rural.
+
+"That's Germany," he said; "it's that which lies at the back of every
+German heart. There lie the springs of the Rhine. It's out of that
+originally that there came all that Germany stands for, its music, its
+poetry, its philosophy, its kultur. All flowed from these quiet uplands.
+It was here that the nation began to think and to dream. To dreamt! It's
+out of dreams that all has sprung."
+
+He laughed.
+
+"And then next week when we go to Munich, you will find me saying that
+this, this Athens of a town, with its museums and its galleries and its
+music, is Germany. I shall be right, too. Out of much dreaming comes
+the need to make. It is when the artist's head and heart are full of
+his dreams that his hands itch for the palette or the piano. Nuremberg!
+Cannot we stop a few hours, at least, in Nuremberg, and see the meadow
+by the Pegnitz where the Meistersingers held their contest of song and
+the wooden, gabled house where Albrecht Durer lived? That will teach you
+Germany, too. The bud of their dream was opening then; and what flower,
+even in the magnificence of its full-blowing, is so lovely? Albrecht
+Durer, with his deep, patient eyes, and his patient hands with their
+unerring stroke; or Bach, with the fugue flowing from his brain through
+his quick fingers, making stars--stars fixed forever in the heaven
+of harmony! Don't tell me that there is anything in the world more
+wonderful! We may have invented a few more instruments, we may have
+experimented with a few more combinations of notes, but in the B minor
+Mass, or in the music of the Passion, all is said. And all that came
+from the woods and the country and the quiet life in little towns, when
+the artist did his work because he loved it, and cared not one jot about
+what anybody else thought about it. We are a nation of thinkers and
+dreamers."
+
+Michael hesitated a moment.
+
+"But you said not long ago that you were also the most practical
+nation," he said. "You are a nation of soldiers, also."
+
+"And who would not willingly give himself for such a Fatherland?" said
+Falbe. "If need be, we will lay our lives down for that, and die more
+willingly than we have lived. God grant that the need comes not. But
+should it come we are ready. We are bound to be ready; it would be a
+crime not to be ready--a crime against the Fatherland. We love peace,
+but the peace-lovers are just those who in war are most terrible. For
+who are the backbone of war when war comes? The women of the country,
+my friend, not the ministers, not the generals and the admirals. I
+don't say they make war, but when war is made they are the spirit of it,
+because, more than men, they love their homes. There is not a woman
+in Germany who will not send forth brother and husband and father and
+child, should the day come. But it will not come from our seeking."
+
+He turned to Michael, his face illuminated by the red glow of the
+sinking sun.
+
+"Germany will rise as one man if she's told to," he said, "for that is
+what her unity and her discipline mean. She is patient and peaceful, but
+she is obedient."
+
+He pointed northwards.
+
+"It is from there, from Prussia, from Berlin," he said, "that the word
+will come, if they who rule and govern us, and in whose hands are all
+organisation and equipment, tell us that our national existence compels
+us to fight. They rule. The Prussians rule; there is no doubt of that.
+From Germany have come the arts, the sciences, the philosophies of the
+world, and not from there. But they guard our national life. It is they
+who watch by the Rhine for us, patient and awake. Should they beckon us
+one night, on some peaceful August night like this, when all seems so
+tranquil, so secure, we shall go. The silent beckoning finger will be
+obeyed from one end of the land to the other, from Poland on the east to
+France on the west."
+
+He turned away quickly.
+
+"It does not bear thinking of," he said; "and yet there are many, oh, so
+many, who night and day concern themselves with nothing else. Let us be
+English again, and not think of anything serious or unpleasant. Already,
+as you know, I am half English; there is something to build upon. Ah,
+and this is the sentimental hour, just when the sun begins to touch the
+horizon line of the stale, weary old earth and turns it into rosy gold
+and heals its troubles and its weariness. Schon, Schon!"
+
+He stood for a moment bareheaded to the breeze, and made a great florid
+salutation to the sun, now only half-disk above the horizon.
+
+"There! I have said my evensong," he remarked, "like a good German, who
+always and always is ridiculous to the whole world, except those who are
+German also. Oh, I can see how we look to the rest of the world so well.
+Beer mug in one hand, and mouth full of sausage and song, and with the
+other hand, perhaps, fingering a revolver. How unreal it must seem to
+you, how affected, and yet how, in truth, you miss it all. Scratch a
+Russian, they say, and you find a Tartar; but scratch a German and you
+find two things--a sentimentalist and a soldier. Lieber Gott! No, I will
+say, Good God! I am English again, and if you scratch me you will find a
+golf ball."
+
+He took Michael's arm again.
+
+"Well, we've spent one day together," he said, "and now we know
+something of who we are. I put this day in the bank; it's mine or yours
+or both of ours. I won't tell you how I've enjoyed it, or you will say
+that I have enjoyed it because I have talked almost all the time. But
+since it's the sentimental hour I will tell you that you mistake. I have
+enjoyed it because I believe I have found a friend."
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Hermann Falbe had just gone back to his lodgings at the end of the
+Richard Wagner Strasse late on the night of their last day at Baireuth,
+and Michael, who had leaned out of his window to remind him of the hour
+of their train's departure the next morning, turned back into the room
+to begin his packing. That was not an affair that would take much time,
+but since, on this sweltering August night, it would certainly be a
+process that involved the production of much heat, he made ready for bed
+first, and went about his preparations in pyjamas. The work of dropping
+things into a bag was soon over, and finding it impossible to entertain
+the idea of sleep, he drew one of the stiff, plush-covered arm-chairs to
+the window and slipped the rein from his thoughts, letting them gallop
+where they pleased.
+
+In all his life he had never experienced so much sheer emotion as the
+last week had held for him. He had enjoyed his first taste of liberty;
+he had stripped himself naked to music; he had found a friend. Any one
+of these would have been sufficient to saturate him, and they had all,
+in the decrees of Fate, come together. His life hitherto had been like
+some dry sponge, dusty and crackling; now it was plunged in the waters
+of three seas, all incomparably sweet.
+
+He had gained his liberty, and in that process he had forgotten about
+himself, the self which up till now had been so intolerable a burden. At
+school, and even before, when first the age of self-consciousness dawned
+upon him, he had seen himself as he believed others saw him--a queer,
+awkward, ill-made boy, slow at his work, shy with his fellows, incapable
+at games. Walled up in this fortress of himself, this gloomy and
+forbidding fastness, he had altogether failed to find the means of
+access to others, both to the normal English boys among whom his path
+lay, and also to his teachers, who, not unnaturally, found him sullen
+and unresponsive. There was no key among the rather limited bunches at
+their command which unlocked him, nor at home had anything been found
+which could fit his wards. It had been the business of school to turn
+out boys of certain received types. There was the clever boy, the
+athletic boy, the merely pleasant boy; these and the combinations
+arrived at from these types were the output. There was no use for
+others.
+
+Then had succeeded those three nightmare years in the Guards, where,
+with his more mature power of observation, he had become more actively
+conscious of his inability to take his place on any of the recognised
+platforms. And all the time, like an owl on his solitary perch, he had
+gazed out lonelily, while the other birds of day, too polite to mock
+him, had merely passed him by. One such, it is true--his cousin--had sat
+by him, and the poor owl's heart had gone out to him. But even Francis,
+so he saw now, had not understood. He had but accepted the fact of him
+without repugnance, had been fond of him as a queer sort of kind elder
+cousin.
+
+Then there was Aunt Barbara. Aunt Barbara, Michael allowed, had
+understood a good deal; she had pointed out with her unerringly
+humourous finger the obstacles he had made for himself.
+
+But could Aunt Barbara understand the rapture of living which this
+one week of liberty had given him? That Michael doubted. She had only
+pointed out the disabilities he made for himself. She did not know
+what he was capable of in the way of happiness. But he thought, though
+without self-consciousness, how delightful it would be to show himself,
+the new, unshelled self, to Aunt Barbara again.
+
+A laughing couple went tapping down the street below his window, boy and
+girl, with arms and waists interlaced. They were laughing at nothing at
+all, except that they were boy and girl together and it was all glorious
+fun. But the sight of them gave Michael a sudden spasm of envy. With all
+this enlightenment that had come to him during this last week, there had
+come no gleam of what that simplest and commonest aspect of human nature
+meant. He had never felt towards a girl what that round-faced German
+boy felt. He was not sure, but he thought he disliked girls; they meant
+nothing to him, anyhow, and the mere thought of his arm round a girl's
+waist only suggested a very embarrassing attitude. He had nothing to
+say to them, and the knowledge of his inability filled him with
+an uncomfortable sense of his want of normality, just as did the
+consciousness of his long arms and stumpy legs.
+
+There was a night he remembered when Francis had insisted that he should
+go with him to a discreet little supper party after an evening at
+the music-hall. There were just four of them--he, Francis, and two
+companions--and he played the role of sour gooseberry to his cousin,
+who, with the utmost gaiety, had proved himself completely equal to the
+inauspicious occasion, and had drank indiscriminately out of both the
+girls' glasses, and lit cigarettes for them; and, after seeing them both
+home, had looked in on Michael, and gone into fits of laughter at his
+general incompatibility.
+
+The steps and conversation passed round the corner, and Michael,
+stretching his bare toes on to the cool balcony, resumed his
+researches--those joyful, unegoistic researches into himself. His
+liberty was bound up with his music; the first gave the key to the
+second. Often as he had rested, so to speak, in oases of music in
+London, they were but a pause from the desert of his uncongenial life
+into the desert again. But now the desert was vanished, and the oasis
+stretched illimitable to the horizon in front of him. That was where,
+for the future, his life was to be passed, not idly, sitting under
+trees, but in the eager pursuit of its unnumbered paths. It was that
+aspect of it which, as he knew so well, his father, for instance, would
+never be able to understand. To Lord Ashbridge's mind, music was
+vaguely connected with white waistcoats and opera glasses and large pink
+carnations; he was congenitally incapable of viewing it in any other
+light than a diversion, something that took place between nine and
+eleven o'clock in the evening, and in smaller quantities at church on
+Sunday morning. He would undoubtedly have said that Handel's Messiah was
+the noblest example of music in the world, because of its subject; music
+did not exist for him as a separate, definite and infinite factor of
+life; and since it did not so exist for himself, he could not imagine
+it existing for anybody else. That Michael correctly knew to be his
+father's general demeanour towards life; he wanted everybody in their
+respective spheres to be like what he was in his. They must take their
+part, as he undoubtedly did, in the Creation-scheme when the British
+aristocracy came into being.
+
+A fresh factor had come into Michael's conception of music during these
+last seven days. He had become aware that Germany was music. He had
+naturally known before that the vast proportion of music came from
+Germany, that almost all of that which meant "music" to him was of
+German origin; but that was a very different affair from the conviction
+now borne in on his mind that there was not only no music apart from
+Germany, but that there was no Germany apart from music.
+
+But every moment he spent in this wayside puddle of a town (for so
+Baireuth seemed to an unbiased view), he became more and more aware that
+music beat in the German blood even as sport beat in the blood of his
+own people. During this festival week Baireuth existed only because of
+that; at other times Baireuth was probably as non-existent as any dull
+and minor town in the English Midlands. But, owing to the fact of music
+being for these weeks resident in Baireuth, the sordid little townlet
+became the capital of the huge, patient Empire. It existed just now
+simply for that reason; to-night, with the curtain of the last act of
+Parsifal, it had ceased to exist again. It was not that a patriotic
+desire to honour one of the national heroes in the home where he had
+been established by the mad genius of a Bavarian king that moved them;
+it was because for the moment that Baireuth to Germans meant Germany.
+From Berlin, from Dresden, from Frankfurt, from Luxemburg, from a
+hundred towns those who were most typically German, whether high or
+low, rich or poor, made their joyous pilgrimage. Joy and solemnity,
+exultation and the yearning that could never be satisfied drew them
+here. And even as music was in Michael's heart, so Germany was there
+also. They were the people who understood; they did not go to the opera
+as a be-diamonded interlude between a dinner and a dance; they came
+to this dreadful little town, the discomforts of which, the utter
+provinciality of which was transformed into the air of the heavenly
+Jerusalem, as Hermann Falbe had said, because their souls were fed here
+with wine and manna. He would find the same thing at Munich, so Falbe
+had told him, the next week.
+
+The loves and the tragedies of the great titanic forces that saw
+the making of the world; the dreams and the deeds of the masters of
+Nuremberg; above all, sacrifice and enlightenment and redemption of the
+soul; how, except by music, could these be made manifest? It was the
+first and only and final alchemy that could by its magic transformation
+give an answer to the tremendous riddles of consciousness; that could
+lift you, though tearing and making mincemeat of you, to the serenity
+of the Pisgah-top, whence was seen the promised land. It, in itself, was
+reality; and the door-keeper who admitted you into that enchanted
+realm was the spirit of Germany. Not France, with its little, morbid
+shiverings, and its meat-market called love; not Italy, with its
+melodious declamations and tawdry tunes; not Russia even, with the wind
+of its impenetrable winters, its sense of joys snatched from its eternal
+frosts gave admittance there; but Germany, "deep, patient Germany," that
+sprang from upland hamlets, and flowed down with ever-broadening stream
+into the illimitable ocean.
+
+Here, then, were two of the initiations that had come, with the
+swiftness of the spate in Alpine valleys at the melting of the snow,
+upon Michael; his own liberty, namely, and this new sense of music. He
+had groped, he felt now, like a blind man in that direction, guided only
+by his instinct, and on a sudden the scales had fallen from his eyes,
+and he knew that his instinct had guided him right. But not less
+epoch-making had been the dawn of friendship. Throughout the week his
+intimacy with Hermann Falbe had developed, shooting up like an
+aloe flower, and rising into sunlight above the mists of his own
+self-occupied shyness, which had so darkly beset him all life long. He
+had given the best that he knew of himself to his cousin, but all
+the time there had never quite been absent from his mind his sense
+of inferiority, a sort of aching wonder why he could not be more like
+Francis, more careless, more capable of enjoyment, more of a normal
+type. But with Falbe he was able for the first time to forget himself
+altogether; he had met a man who did not recall him to himself, but
+took him clean out of that tedious dwelling which he knew so well and,
+indeed, disliked so much. He was rid for the first time of his morbid
+self-consciousness; his anchor had been taken up from its dragging in
+the sand, and he rode free, buoyed on waters and taken by tides. It
+did not occur to him to wonder whether Falbe thought him uncouth and
+awkward; it did not occur to him to try to be pleasant, a job over which
+poor Michael had so often found himself dishearteningly incapable; he
+let himself be himself in the consciousness that this was sufficient.
+
+They had spent the morning together before this second performance of
+Parsifal that closed their series, in the woods above the theatre, and
+Michael, no longer blurting out his speeches, but speaking in the quiet,
+orderly manner in which he thought, discussed his plans.
+
+"I shall come back to London with you after Munich," he said, "and
+settle down to study. I do know a certain amount about harmony already;
+I have been mugging it up for the last three years. But I must do
+something as well as learn something, and, as I told you, I'm going to
+take up the piano seriously."
+
+Falbe was not attending particularly.
+
+"A fine instrument, the piano," he remarked. "There is certainly
+something to be done with a piano, if you know how to do it. I can strum
+a bit myself. Some keys are harder than others--the black notes."
+
+"Yes; what of the black notes?" asked Michael.
+
+"Oh! they're black. The rest are white. I beg your pardon!"
+
+Michael laughed.
+
+"When you have finished drivelling," he said, "you might let me know."
+
+"I have finished drivelling, Michael. I was thinking about something
+else."
+
+"Not really?"
+
+"Really."
+
+"Then it was impolite of you, but you haven't any manners. I was talking
+about my career. I want to do something, and these large hands are
+really rather nimble. But I must be taught. The question is whether you
+will teach me."
+
+Falbe hesitated.
+
+"I can't tell you," he said, "till I have heard you play. It's like
+this: I can't teach you to play unless you know how, and I can't tell
+if you know how until I have heard you. If you have got that particular
+sort of temperament that can put itself into the notes out of the ends
+of your fingers, I can teach you, and I will. But if you haven't, I
+shall feel bound to advise you to try the Jew's harp, and see if you can
+get it out of your teeth. I'm not mocking you; I fancy you know that.
+But some people, however keenly and rightly they feel, cannot bring
+their feelings out through their fingers. Others can; it is a special
+gift. If you haven't got it, I can't teach you anything, and there is
+no use in wasting your time and mine. You can teach yourself to be
+frightfully nimble with your fingers, and all the people who don't
+know will say: 'How divinely Lord Comber plays! That sweet thing; is it
+Brahms or Mendelssohn?' But I can't really help you towards that; you
+can do that for yourself. But if you've got the other, I can and will
+teach you all that you really know already."
+
+"Go on!" said Michael.
+
+"That's just the devil with the piano," said Falbe. "It's the easiest
+instrument of all to make a show on, and it is the rarest sort of person
+who can play on it. That's why, all those years, I have hated giving
+lessons. If one has to, as I have had to, one must take any awful miss
+with a pigtail, and make a sham pianist of her. One can always do that.
+But it would be waste of time for you and me; you wouldn't want to be
+made a sham pianist, and simply I wouldn't make you one."
+
+Michael turned round.
+
+"Good Lord!" he said, "the suspense is worse than I can bear. Isn't
+there a piano in your room? Can't we go down there, and have it over?"
+
+"Yes, if you wish. I can tell at once if you are capable of playing--at
+least, whether I think you are capable of playing--whether I can teach
+you."
+
+"But I haven't touched a piano for a week," said Michael.
+
+"It doesn't matter whether you've touched a piano for a year."
+
+Michael had not been prevented by the economy that made him travel
+second-class from engaging a carriage by the day at Baireuth, since
+that clearly was worth while, and they found it waiting for them by
+the theatre. There was still time to drive to Falbe's lodging and get
+through this crucial ordeal before the opera, and they went straight
+there. A very venerable instrument, which Falbe had not yet opened,
+stood against the wall, and he struck a few notes on it.
+
+"Completely out of tune," he said; "but that doesn't matter. Now then!"
+
+"But what am I to play?" asked Michael.
+
+"Anything you like."
+
+He sat down at the far end of the room, put his long legs up on to
+another chair and waited. Michael sent a despairing glance at that
+gay face, suddenly grown grim, and took his seat. He felt a paralysing
+conviction that Falbe's judgment, whatever that might turn out to be,
+would be right, and the knowledge turned his fingers stiff. From the few
+notes that Falbe had struck he guessed on what sort of instrument his
+ordeal was to take place, and yet he knew that Falbe himself would have
+been able to convey to him the sense that he could play, though the
+piano was all out of tune, and there might be dumb, disconcerting notes
+in it. There was justice in Falbe's dictum about the temperament that
+lay behind the player, which would assert itself through any faultiness
+of instrument, and through, so he suspected, any faultiness of
+execution.
+
+He struck a chord, and heard it jangle dissonantly.
+
+"Oh, it's not fair," he said.
+
+"Get on!" said Falbe.
+
+In spite of Germany there occurred to Michael a Chopin prelude, at which
+he had worked a little during the last two months in London. The notes
+he knew perfectly; he had believed also that he had found a certain
+conception of it as a whole, so that he could make something coherent
+out of it, not merely adding bar to correct bar. And he began the soft
+repetition of chord-quavers with which it opened.
+
+Then after stumbling wretchedly through two lines of it, he suddenly
+forgot himself and Falbe, and the squealing unresponsive notes. He heard
+them no more, absorbed in the knowledge of what he meant by them, of the
+mood which they produced in him. His great, ungainly hands had all the
+gentleness and self-control that strength gives, and the finger-filling
+chords were as light and as fine as the settling of some poised bird on
+a bough. In the last few lines of the prelude a deep bass note had to be
+struck at the beginning of each bar; this Michael found was completely
+dumb, but so clear and vivid was the effect of it in his mind that he
+scarcely noticed that it returned no answer to his finger. . . . At the
+end he sat without moving, his hands dropped on to his knees.
+
+Falbe got up and, coming over to the piano, struck the bass note
+himself.
+
+"Yes, I knew it was dumb," he said, "but you made me think it wasn't.
+. . . You got quite a good tone out of it."
+
+He paused a moment, again striking the dumb note, as if to make sure
+that it was soundless.
+
+"Yes; I'll teach you," he said. "All the technique you have got, you
+know, is wrong from beginning to end, and you mustn't mind unlearning
+all that. But you've got the thing that matters."
+
+
+All this stewed and seethed in Michael's mind as he sat that night by
+the window looking out on to the silent and empty street. His thoughts
+flowed without check or guide from his will, wandering wherever their
+course happened to take them, now lingering, like the water of a river
+in some deep, still pool, when he thought of the friendship that
+had come into his life, now excitedly plunging down the foam of
+swift-flowing rapids in the exhilaration of his newly-found liberty,
+now proceeding with steady current at the thought of the weeks of
+unremitting industry at a beloved task that lay in front of him. He
+could form no definite image out of these which should represent his
+ordinary day; it was all lost in a bright haze through which its shape
+was but faintly discernible; but life lay in front of him with promise,
+a thing to be embraced and greeted with welcome and eager hands, instead
+of being a mere marsh through which he had to plod with labouring steps,
+a business to be gone about without joy and without conviction in its
+being worth while.
+
+He wondered for a moment, as he rose to go to bed, what his feelings
+would have been if, at the end of his performance on the sore-throated
+and voiceless piano, Falbe had said: "I'm sorry, but I can't do anything
+with you." As he knew, Falbe intended for the future only to take a few
+pupils, and chiefly devote himself to his own practice with a view to
+emerging as a concert-giver the next winter; and as Michael had sat
+down, he remembered telling himself that there was really not the
+slightest chance of his friend accepting him as a pupil. He did not
+intend that this rejection should make the smallest difference to his
+aim, but he knew that he would start his work under the tremendous
+handicap of Falbe not believing that he had it in him to play, and under
+the disappointment of not enjoying the added intimacy which work with
+and for Falbe would give him. Then he had engaged in this tussle with
+refractory notes till he quite lost himself in what he was playing,
+and thought no more either of Falbe or the piano, but only of what the
+melody meant to him. But at the end, when he came to himself again, and
+sat with dropped hands waiting for Falbe's verdict, he remembered how
+his heart seemed to hang poised until it came. He had rehearsed again
+to himself his fixed determination that he would play and could play,
+whatever his friend might think about it; but there was no doubt that he
+waited with a greater suspense than he had ever known in his life before
+for that verdict to be made known to him.
+
+Next day came their journey to Munich, and the installation in the
+best hotel in Europe. Here Michael was host, and the economy which he
+practised when he had only himself to provide for, and which made him
+go second-class when travelling, was, as usual, completely abandoned now
+that the pleasure of hospitality was his. He engaged at once the best
+double suite of rooms that the hotel contained, two bedrooms with
+bathrooms, and an admirable sitting-room, looking spaciously out on
+to the square, and with brusque decision silenced Falbe's attempted
+remonstrance. "Don't interfere with my show, please," he had said, and
+proceeded to inquire about a piano to be sent in for the week. Then he
+turned to his friend again. "Oh, we are going to enjoy ourselves," he
+said, with an irresistible sincerity.
+
+Tristan und Isolde was given on the third day of their stay there, and
+Falbe, reading the morning German paper, found news.
+
+"The Kaiser has arrived," he said. "There's a truce in the army
+manoeuvres for a couple of days, and he has come to be present at
+Tristan this evening. He's travelled three hundred miles to get here,
+and will go back to-morrow. The Reise-Kaiser, you know."
+
+Michael looked up with some slight anxiety.
+
+"Ought I to write my name or anything?" he asked. "He has stayed several
+times with my father."
+
+"Has he? But I don't suppose it matters. The visit is a
+widely-advertised incognito. That's his way. God be with the
+All-highest," he added.
+
+"Well, I shan't" said Michael. "But it would shock my father dreadfully
+if he knew. The Kaiser looks on him as the type and model of the English
+nobleman."
+
+Michael crunched one of the inimitable breakfast rusks in his teeth.
+
+"Lord, what a day we had when he was at Ashbridge last year," he said.
+"We began at eight with a review of the Suffolk Yeomanry; then we had a
+pheasant shoot from eleven till three; then the Emperor had out a steam
+launch and careered up and down the river till six, asking a thousand
+questions about the tides and the currents and the navigable channels.
+Then he lectured us on the family portraits till dinner; after dinner
+there was a concert, at which he conducted the 'Song to Aegir,' and then
+there was a torch-light fandango by the tenants on the lawn. He was on
+his holiday, you must remember."
+
+"I heard the 'Song to Aegir' once," remarked Falbe, with a perfectly
+level intonation.
+
+"I was--er--luckier," said Michael politely, "because on that occasion I
+heard it twice. It was encored."
+
+"And what did it sound like the second time?" asked Falbe.
+
+"Much as before," said Michael.
+
+The advent of the Emperor had put the whole town in a ferment. Though
+the visit was quite incognito, an enormous military staff which had
+been poured into the town might have led the thoughtful to suspect the
+Kaiser's presence, even if it had not been announced in the largest type
+in the papers, and marchings and counter-marchings of troops and sudden
+bursts of national airs proclaimed the august presence. He held an
+informal review of certain Bavarian troops not out for manoeuvres in the
+morning, visited the sculpture gallery and pinacothek in the afternoon,
+and when Hermann and Michael went up to the theatre they found rows
+of soldiers drawn up, and inside unusual decorations over a section of
+stalls which had been removed and was converted into an enormous box.
+This was in the centre of the first tier, nearly at right angles to
+where they sat, in the front row of the same tier; and when, with
+military punctuality, the procession of uniforms, headed by the Emperor,
+filed in, the whole of the crowded house stood up and broke into a roar
+of recognition and loyalty.
+
+For a minute, or perhaps more, the Emperor stood facing the house with
+his hand raised in salute, a figure the uprightness of which made him
+look tall. His brilliant uniform was ablaze with decorations; he seemed
+every inch a soldier and a leader of men. For that minute he stood
+looking neither to the right nor left, stern and almost frowning, with
+no shadow of a smile playing on the tightly-drawn lips, above which his
+moustache was brushed upwards in two stiff protuberances towards his
+eyes. He was there just then not to see, but to be seen, his incognito
+was momentarily in abeyance, and he stood forth the supreme head of his
+people, the All-highest War Lord, who had come that day from the
+field, to which he would return across half Germany tomorrow. It was an
+impressive and dignified moment, and Michael heard Falbe say to himself:
+"Kaiserlich! Kaiserlich!"
+
+Then it was over. The Emperor sat down, beckoned to two of his officers,
+who had stood in a group far at the back of the box, to join him, and
+with one on each side he looked about the house and chatted to them. He
+had taken out his opera-glass, which he adjusted, using his right hand
+only, and looked this way and that, as if, incognito again, he was
+looking for friends in the house. Once Michael thought that he looked
+rather long and fixedly in his direction, and then, putting down his
+glass, he said something to one of the officers, this time clearly
+pointing towards Michael. Then he gave some signal, just raising his
+hand towards the orchestra, and immediately the lights were put down,
+the whole house plunged in darkness, except where the lamps in the sunk
+orchestra faintly illuminated the base of the curtain, and the first
+longing, unsatisfied notes of the prelude began.
+
+The next hour passed for Michael in one unbroken mood of absorption. The
+supreme moment of knowing the music intimately and of never having seen
+the opera before was his, and all that he had dreamed of or imagined
+as to the possibilities of music was flooded and drowned in the thing
+itself. You could not say that it was more gigantic than The Ring, more
+human than the Meistersingers, more emotional than Parsifal, but it
+was utterly and wholly different to anything else he had ever seen or
+conjectured. Falbe, he himself, the thronged and silent theatre, the
+Emperor, Munich, Germany, were all blotted out of his consciousness.
+He just watched, as if discarnate, the unrolling of the decrees of Fate
+which were to bring so simple and overpowering a tragedy on the two who
+drained the love-potion together. And at the end he fell back in his
+seat, feeling thrilled and tired, exhilarated and exhausted.
+
+"Oh, Hermann," he said, "what years I've wasted!"
+
+Falbe laughed.
+
+"You've wasted more than you know yet," he said. "Hallo!"
+
+A very resplendent officer had come clanking down the gangway next them.
+He put his heels together and bowed.
+
+"Lord Comber, I think?" he said in excellent English.
+
+Michael roused himself.
+
+"Yes?" he said.
+
+"His Imperial Majesty has done me the honour to desire you to come and
+speak to him," he said.
+
+"Now?" said Michael.
+
+"If you will be so good," and he stood aside for Michael to pass up the
+stairs in front of him.
+
+In the wide corridor behind he joined him again.
+
+"Allow me to introduce myself as Count von Bergmann," he said, "and
+one of His Majesty's aides-de-camp. The Kaiser always speaks with
+great pleasure of the visits he has paid to your father, and he saw you
+immediately he came into the theatre. If you will permit me, I would
+advise you to bow, but not very low, respecting His Majesty's incognito,
+to seat yourself as soon as he desires it, and to remain till he gives
+you some speech of dismissal. Forgive me for going in front of you here.
+I have to introduce you to His Majesty's presence."
+
+Michael followed him down the steps to the front of the box.
+
+"Lord Comber, All-highest," he said, and instantly stood back.
+
+The Emperor rose and held out his hand, and Michael, bowing over it as
+he took it, felt himself seized in the famous grip of steel, of which
+its owner as well as its recipient was so conscious.
+
+"I am much pleased to see you, Lord Comber," said he. "I could not
+resist the pleasure of a little chat with you about our beloved England.
+And your excellent father, how is he?"
+
+He indicated a chair to Michael, who, as advised, instantly took it,
+though the Emperor remained a moment longer standing.
+
+"I left him in very good health, Your Majesty," said Michael.
+
+"Ah! I am glad to hear it. I desire you to convey to him my friendliest
+greetings, and to your mother also. I well remember my last visit to
+his house above the tidal estuary at Ashbridge, and I hope it may not be
+very long before I have the opportunity to be in England again."
+
+He spoke in a voice that seemed rather hoarse and tired, but his manner
+expressed the most courteous cordiality. His face, which had been as
+still as a statue's when he showed himself to the house, was now never
+in repose for a moment. He kept turning his head, which he carried very
+upright, this way and that as he spoke; now he would catch sight of
+someone in the audience to whom he directed his glance, now he would
+peer over the edge of the low balustrade, now look at the group of
+officers who stood apart at the back of the box.
+
+His whole demeanour suggested a nervous, highly-strung condition; the
+restlessness of it was that of a man overstrained, who had lost the
+capability of being tranquil. Now he frowned, now he smiled, but never
+for a moment was he quiet. Then he launched a perfect hailstorm of
+questions at Michael, to the answers to which (there was scarcely time
+for more than a monosyllable in reply) he listened with an eager and
+a suspicious attention. They were concerned at first with all sorts of
+subjects: inquired if Michael had been at Baireuth, what he was going to
+do after the Munich festival was over, if he had English friends
+here. He inquired Falbe's name, looked at him for a moment through his
+glasses, and desired to know more about him. Then, learning he was a
+teacher of the piano in England, and had a sister who sang, he expressed
+great satisfaction.
+
+"I like to see my subjects, when there is no need for their services at
+home," he said, "learning about other lands, and bringing also to other
+lands the culture of the Fatherland, even as it always gives me pleasure
+to see the English here, strengthening by the study of the arts the
+bonds that bind our two great nations together. You English must
+learn to understand us and our great mission, just as we must learn to
+understand you."
+
+Then the questions became more specialised, and concerned the state
+of things in England. He laughed over the disturbances created by the
+Suffragettes, was eager to hear what politicians thought about the state
+of things in Ireland, made specific inquiries about the Territorial
+Force, asked about the Navy, the state of the drama in London, the coal
+strike which was threatened in Yorkshire. Then suddenly he put a series
+of personal questions.
+
+"And you, you are in the Guards, I think?" he said.
+
+"No, sir; I have just resigned my commission," said Michael.
+
+"Why? Why is that? Have many of your officers been resigning?"
+
+"I am studying music, Your Majesty," said Michael.
+
+"I am glad to see you came to Germany to do it. Berlin? You ought to
+spend a couple of months in Berlin. Perhaps you are thinking of doing
+so."
+
+He turned round quickly to one of his staff who had approached him.
+
+"Well, what is it?" he said.
+
+Count von Bergmann bowed low.
+
+"The Herr-Director," he said, "humbly craves to know whether it is Your
+Majesty's pleasure that the opera shall proceed."
+
+The Kaiser laughed.
+
+"There, Lord Comber," he said, "you see how I am ordered about. They
+wish to cut short my conversation with you. Yes, Bergmann, we will go
+on. You will remain with me, Lord Comber, for this act."
+
+Immediately after the lights were lowered again, the curtain rose, and
+a most distracting hour began for Michael. His neighbour was never still
+for a single moment. Now he would shift in his chair, now with his hand
+he would beat time on the red velvet balustrade in front of him, and a
+stream of whispered appreciation and criticism flowed from him.
+
+"They are taking the opening scene a little too slow," he said. "I shall
+call the director's attention to that. But that crescendo is well done;
+yes, that is most effective. The shawl--observe the beautiful lines
+into which the shawl falls as she waves it. That is wonderful--a very
+impressive entry. Ah, but they should not cross the stage yet; it is
+more effective if they remain longer there. Brangane sings finely; she
+warns them that the doom is near."
+
+He gave a little giggle, which reminded Michael of his father.
+
+"Brangane is playing gooseberry, as you say in England," he said. "A big
+gooseberry, is she not? Ah, bravo! bravo! Wunderschon! Yes, enter King
+Mark from his hunting. Very fine. Say I was particularly pleased with
+the entry of King Mark, Bergmann. A wonderful act! Wagner never touched
+greater heights."
+
+At the end the Emperor rose and again held out his hand.
+
+"I am pleased to have seen you, Lord Comber," he said. "Do not forget
+my message to your father; and take my advice and come to Berlin in the
+winter. We are always pleased to see the English in Germany."
+
+As Michael left the box he ran into the Herr-Director, who had been
+summoned to get a few hints.
+
+He went back to join Falbe in a state of republican irritation, which
+the honour that had been done him did not at all assuage. There was an
+hour's interval before the third act, and the two drove back to their
+hotel to dine there. But Michael found his friend wholly unsympathetic
+with his chagrin. To him, it was quite clear, the disappointment of not
+having been able to attend very closely to the second act of Tristan was
+negligible compared to the cause that had occasioned it. It was possible
+for the ordinary mortal to see Tristan over and over again, but to
+converse with the Kaiser was a thing outside the range of the average
+man. And again in this interval, as during the act itself, Michael
+was bombarded with questions. What did the Kaiser say? Did he remember
+Ashbridge? Did Michael twice receive the iron grip? Did the All-highest
+say anything about the manoeuvres? Did he look tired, or was it only the
+light above his head that made him appear so haggard? Even his opinion
+about the opera was of interest. Did he express approval?
+
+This was too much for Michael.
+
+"My dear Hermann," he said, "we alluded very cautiously to the 'Song to
+Aegir' this morning, and delicately remarked that you had heard it once
+and I twice. How can you care what his opinion of this opera is?"
+
+Falbe shook his handsome head, and gesticulated with his fine hands.
+
+"You don't understand," he said. "You have just been talking to him
+himself. I long to hear his every word and intonation. There is the
+personality, which to us means so much, in which is summed up all
+Germany. It is as if I had spoken to Rule Britannia herself. Would you
+not be interested? There is no one in the world who is to his country
+what the Kaiser is to us. When you told me he had stayed at Ashbridge I
+was thrilled, but I was ashamed lest you should think me snobbish, which
+indeed I am not. But now I am past being ashamed."
+
+He poured out a glass of wine and drank it with a "Hoch!"
+
+"In his hand lies peace and war," he said. "It is as he pleases. The
+Emperor and his Chancellor can make Germany do exactly what they choose,
+and if the Chancellor does not agree with the Emperor, the Emperor can
+appoint one who does. That is what it comes to; that is why he is as
+vast as Germany itself. The Reichstag but advises where he is concerned.
+Have you no imagination, Michael? Europe lies in the hand that shook
+yours."
+
+Michael laughed.
+
+"I suppose I must have no imagination," he said. "I don't picture it
+even now when you point it out."
+
+Falbe pointed an impressive forefinger.
+
+"But for him," he said, "England and Germany would have been at each
+other's throats over the business at Agadir. He held the warhounds in
+leash--he, their master, who made them."
+
+"Oh, he made them, anyhow," said Michael.
+
+"Naturally. It is his business to be ready for any attack on the part of
+those who are jealous at our power. The whole Fatherland is a sword
+in his hand, which he sheathes. It would long ago have leaped from the
+scabbard but for him."
+
+"Against whom?" asked Michael. "Who is the enemy?"
+
+Falbe hesitated.
+
+"There is no enemy at present," he said, "but the enemy potentially is
+any who tries to thwart our peaceful expansion."
+
+Suddenly the whole subject tasted bitter to Michael. He recalled,
+instinctively, the Emperor's great curiosity to be informed on English
+topics by the ordinary Englishman with whom he had acquaintance.
+
+"Oh, let's drop it," he said. "I really didn't come to Munich to talk
+politics, of which I know nothing whatever."
+
+Falbe nodded.
+
+"That is what I have said to you before," he remarked. "You are the most
+happy-go-lucky of the nations. Did he speak of England?"
+
+"Yes, of his beloved England," said Michael. "He was extremely cordial
+about our relations."
+
+"Good. I like that," said Falbe briskly.
+
+"And he recommended me to spend two months in Berlin in the winter,"
+added Michael, sliding off on to other topics.
+
+Falbe smiled.
+
+"I like that less," he said, "since that will mean you will not be in
+London."
+
+"But I didn't commit myself," said Michael, smiling back; "though I can
+say 'beloved Germany' with equal sincerity."
+
+Falbe got up.
+
+"I would wish that--that you were Kaiser of England," he said.
+
+"God forbid!" said Michael. "I should not have time to play the piano."
+
+During the next day or two Michael often found himself chipping at
+the bed-rock, so to speak, of this conversation, and Falbe's revealed
+attitude towards his country and, in particular, towards its supreme
+head. It seemed to him a wonderful and an enviable thing that anyone
+could be so thoroughly English as Falbe certainly was in his ordinary,
+everyday life, and that yet, at the back of this there should lie
+so profound a patriotism towards another country, and so profound a
+reverence to its ruler. In his general outlook on life, his friend
+appeared to be entirely of one blood with himself, yet now on two or
+three occasions a chance spark had lit up this Teutonic beacon. To
+Michael this mixture of nationalities seemed to be a wonderful gift;
+it implied a widening of one's sympathies and outlook, a larger
+comprehension of life than was possible to any of undiluted blood.
+
+For himself, like most young Englishmen of his day, he was not conscious
+of any tremendous sense of patriotism like this. Somewhere, deep down
+in him, he supposed there might be a source, a well of English waters,
+which some explosion in his nature might cause to flood him entirely,
+but such an idea was purely hypothetical; he did not, in fact, look
+forward to such a bouleversement as being a possible contingency. But
+with Falbe it was different; quite a small cause, like the sight of
+the Rhine at Cologne, or a Bavarian village at sunset, or the fact of a
+friend having talked with the Emperor, was sufficient to make his
+innate patriotism find outlet in impassioned speech. He wondered vaguely
+whether Falbe's explanation of this--namely, that nationally the English
+were prosperous, comfortable and insouciant--was perhaps sound. It
+seemed that the notion was not wholly foundationless.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Michael had been practising all the morning of a dark November day, had
+eaten a couple of sandwiches standing in front of his fire, and observed
+with some secret satisfaction that the fog which had lifted for an
+hour had come down on the town again in earnest, and that it was only
+reasonable to dismiss the possibility of going out, and spend the
+afternoon as he had spent the morning. But he permitted himself a few
+minutes' relaxation as he smoked his cigarette, and sat down by the
+window, looking out, in Lucretian mood, on to the very dispiriting
+conditions that prevailed in the street.
+
+Though it was still only between one and two in the afternoon, the
+densest gloom prevailed, so that it was impossible to see the outlines
+even of the houses across the street, and the only evidence that he
+was not in some desert spot lay in the fact of a few twinkling lights,
+looking incredibly remote, from the windows opposite and the gas-lamps
+below. Traffic seemed to be at a standstill; the accustomed roar from
+Piccadilly was dumb, and he looked out on to a silent and vapour-swathed
+world. This isolation from all his fellows and from the chances of being
+disturbed, it may be added, gave him a sense of extreme satisfaction. He
+wanted his piano, but no intrusive presence. He liked the sensation of
+being shut up in his own industrious citadel, secure from interruption.
+
+During the last two months and a half since his return from Munich he
+had experienced greater happiness, had burned with a stronger zest for
+life than during the whole of his previous existence. Not only had he
+been working at that which he believed he was fitted for, and which gave
+him the stimulus which, one way or another, is essential to all good
+work, but he had been thrown among people who were similarly employed,
+with whom he had this great common ground of kinship in ambition and
+aim. No more were the days too long from being but half-filled with work
+with which he had no sympathy, and diversions that gave him no pleasure;
+none held sufficient hours for all that he wanted to put into it. And in
+this busy atmosphere, where his own studies took so much of his time
+and energy, and where everybody else was in some way similarly employed,
+that dismal self-consciousness which so drearily looked on himself
+shuffling along through fruitless, uncongenial days was cracking off him
+as the chestnut husk cracks when the kernel within swells and ripens.
+
+Apart from his work, the centre of his life was certainly the household
+of the Falbes, where the brother and sister lived with their mother. She
+turned out to be in a rather remote manner "one of us," and had about
+her, very faint and dim, like an antique lavender bag, the odour of
+Ashbridge. She lived like the lilies of the field, without toiling or
+spinning, either literally or with the more figurative work of the mind;
+indeed, she can scarcely be said to have had any mind at all, for, as
+with drugs, she had sapped it away by a practically unremitting perusal
+of all the fiction that makes the average reader wonder why it was
+written. In fact, she supplied the answer to that perplexing question,
+since it was clearly written for her. She was not in the least excited
+by these tales, any more than the human race are excited by the oxygen
+in the air, but she could not live without them. She subscribed to three
+lending libraries, which, by this time had probably learned her tastes,
+for if she ever by ill-chance embarked on a volume which ever so faintly
+adumbrated the realities of life, she instantly returned it, as she
+found it painful; and, naturally, she did not wish to be pained. This
+did not, however, prevent her reading those that dealt with amiable
+young men who fell in love with amiable young women, and were for
+the moment sundered by red-haired adventuresses or black-haired
+moneylenders, for those she found not painful but powerful, and could
+often remember where she had got to in them, which otherwise was not
+usually the case. She wore a good deal of lace, spoke in a tired voice,
+and must certainly have been of the type called "sweetly pretty" some
+quarter of a century ago. She drank hot water with her meals, and
+continually reminded Michael of his own mother.
+
+Sylvia and Hermann certainly did all that could be done for her; in
+other words, they invariably saw that her water was hot, and her stock
+of novels replenished. But when that was accomplished, there really
+appeared to be little more that could be done for her. Her presence in a
+room counted for about as much as a rather powerful shadow on the wall,
+unexplained by any solid object which could have made it appear there.
+But most of the day she spent in her own room, which was furnished
+exactly in accordance with her twilight existence. There was a
+writing-table there, which she never used, several low arm-chairs (one
+of which she was always using), by each of which was a small table, on
+to which she could put the book that she was at the moment engaged on.
+Lace hangings, of the sort that prevent anybody either seeing in or out,
+obscured the windows; and for decoration there were china figures on the
+chimney-piece, plush-rimmed plates on the walls, and a couple of easels,
+draped with chiffon, on which stood enlarged photographs of her husband
+and her children.
+
+There was, it may be added, nothing in the least pathetic about her,
+for, as far as could be ascertained, she had everything she wanted. In
+fact, from the standpoint of commonsense, hers was the most successful
+existence; for, knowing what she liked, she passed her entire life
+in its accomplishment. The only thing that caused her emotion was the
+energy and vitality of her two children, and even then that emotion was
+but a mild surprise when she recollected how tremendous a worker and
+boisterous a gourmand of life was her late husband, on the anniversary
+of whose death she always sat all day without reading any novels at all,
+but devoted what was left of her mind to the contemplation of nothing
+at all. She had married him because, for some inscrutable reason, he
+insisted on it; and she had been resigned to his death, as to everything
+else that had ever happened to her.
+
+All her life, in fact, she had been of that unchangeable, drab quality
+in emotional affairs which is characteristic of advanced middle-age,
+when there are no great joys or sorrows to look back on, and no
+expectation for the future. She had always had something of the
+indestructible quality of frail things like thistledown or cottonwool;
+violence and explosion that would blow strong and distinct organisms
+to atoms only puffed her a yard or two away where she alighted again
+without shock, instead of injuring or annihilating her. . . . Yet, in
+the inexplicable ways of love, Sylvia and her brother not only did what
+could be done for her, but regarded her with the tenderest affection.
+What that love lived on, what was its daily food would be hard to guess,
+were it not that love lives on itself.
+
+The rest of the house, apart from the vacuum of Mrs. Falbe's rooms,
+conducted itself, so it seemed to Michael, at the highest possible
+pressure. Sylvia and her brother were both far too busy to be restless,
+and if, on the one hand, Mrs. Falbe's remote, impenetrable life was
+inexplicable, not less inexplicable was the rage for living that
+possessed the other two. From morning till night, and on Sundays from
+night till morning, life proceeded at top speed.
+
+As regards household arrangements, which were all in Sylvia's hands,
+there were three fixed points in the day. That is to say, that there
+was lunch for Mrs. Falbe and anybody else who happened to be there at
+half-past one; tea in Mrs. Falbe's well-liked sitting-room at five,
+and dinner at eight. These meals--Mrs. Falbe always breakfasted in her
+bedroom--were served with quiet decorum. Apart from them, anybody who
+required anything consulted the cook personally. Hermann, for instance,
+would have spent the morning at his piano in the vast studio at the back
+of their house in Maidstone Crescent, and not arrived at the fact that
+it was lunch time till perhaps three in the afternoon. Unless then he
+settled to do without lunch altogether, he must forage for himself; or
+Sylvia, having to sing at a concert at eight, would return famished and
+exultant about ten; she would then proceed to provide herself, unless
+she supped elsewhere, with a plate of eggs and bacon, or anything
+else that was easily accessible. It was not from preference that these
+haphazard methods were adopted; but since they only kept two servants,
+it was clear that a couple of women, however willing, could not possibly
+cope with so irregular a commissariat in addition to the series of fixed
+hours and the rest of the household work. As it was, two splendidly
+efficient persons, one German, the other English, had filled the
+posts of parlourmaid and cook for the last eight years, and regarded
+themselves, and were regarded, as members of the family. Lucas,
+the parlourmaid, indeed, from the intense interest she took in the
+conversation at table, could not always resist joining in it, and was
+apt to correct Hermann or his sister if she detected an inaccuracy in
+their statements. "No, Miss Sylvia," she would say, "it was on Thursday,
+not Wednesday," and then recollecting herself, would add, "Beg your
+pardon, miss."
+
+In this milieu, as new to Michael as some suddenly discovered country,
+he found himself at once plunged and treated with instant friendly
+intimacy. Hermann, so he supposed, must have given him a good character,
+for he was made welcome before he could have had time to make any
+impression for himself, as Hermann's friend. On the first occasion of
+his visiting the house, for the purpose of his music lesson, he had
+stopped to lunch afterwards, where he met Sylvia, and was in the
+presence of (you could hardly call it more than that) their mother.
+
+Mrs. Falbe had faded away in some mist-like fashion soon after, but it
+was evident that he was intended to do no such thing, and they had gone
+into the studio, already comrades, and Michael had chiefly listened
+while the other two had violent and friendly discussions on every
+subject under the sun. Then Hermann happened to sit down at the piano,
+and played a Chopin etude pianissimo prestissimo with finger-tips that
+just made the notes to sound and no more, and Sylvia told him that he
+was getting it better; and then Sylvia sang "Who is Sylvia?" and Hermann
+told her that she shouldn't have eaten so much lunch, or shouldn't have
+sung; and then, by transitions that Michael could not recollect, they
+played the Hailstone Chorus out of Israel in Egypt (or, at any rate,
+reproduced the spirit of it), and both sang at the top of their voices.
+Then, as usually happened in the afternoon, two or three friends dropped
+in, and though these were all intimate with their hosts, Michael had no
+impression of being out in the cold or among strangers. And when he left
+he felt as if he had been stretching out chilly hands to the fire, and
+that the fire was always burning there, ready for him to heat himself
+at, with its welcoming flames and core of sincere warmth, whenever he
+felt so disposed.
+
+At first he had let himself do this much less often than he would have
+liked, for the shyness of years, his over-sensitive modesty at his own
+want of charm and lightness, was a self-erected barrier in his way. He
+was, in spite of his intimacy with Hermann, desperately afraid of being
+tiresome, of checking by his presence, as he had so often felt himself
+do before, the ease and high spirits of others. But by degrees this
+broke down; he realised that he was now among those with whom he had
+that kinship of the mind and of tastes which makes the foundation on
+which friendship, and whatever friendship may ripen into, is securely
+built. Never did the simplicity and sincerity of their welcome fail;
+the cordiality which greeted him was always his; he felt that it was
+intended that he should be at home there just as much as he cared to be.
+
+The six working days of the week, however, were as a rule too full both
+for the Falbes and for Michael to do more than have, apart from the
+music lessons, flying glimpses of each other; for the day was taken up
+with work, concerts and opera occurred often in the evening, and the
+shuttles of London took their threads in divergent directions. But on
+Sunday the house at Maidstone Crescent ceased, as Hermann said, to be a
+junction, and became a temporary terminus.
+
+"We burst from our chrysalis, in fact," he said. "If you find it
+clearer to understand this way, we burst from our chrysalis and become
+a caterpillar. Do chrysalides become caterpillars! We do, anyhow. If
+you come about eight you will find food; if you come later you will also
+find food of a sketchier kind. People have a habit of dropping in on
+Sunday evening. There's music if anyone feels inclined to make any, and
+if they don't they are made to. Some people come early, others late,
+and they stop to breakfast if they wish. It's a gaudeamus, you know, a
+jolly, a jamboree. One has to relax sometimes."
+
+Michael felt all his old unfitness for dreadful crowds return to him.
+
+"Oh, I'm so bad at that sort of thing," he said. "I am a frightful
+kill-joy, Hermann."
+
+Hermann sat down on the treble part of his piano.
+
+"That's the most conceited thing I've heard you say yet," he remarked.
+"Nobody will pay any attention to you; you won't kill anybody's joy.
+Also it's rather rude of you."
+
+"I didn't mean to be rude," said Michael.
+
+"Then we must suppose you were rude by accident. That is the worst sort
+of rudeness."
+
+"I'm sorry; I'll come," said Michael.
+
+"That's right. You might even find yourself enjoying it by accident, you
+know. If you don't, you can go away. There's music; Sylvia sings quite
+seriously sometimes, and other people sing or bring violins, and those
+who don't like it, talk--and then we get less serious. Have a try,
+Michael. See if you can't be less serious, too."
+
+Michael slipped despairingly from his seat.
+
+"If only I knew how!" he said. "I believe my nurse never taught me to
+play, only to remember that I was a little gentleman. All the same, when
+I am with you, or with my cousin Francis, I can manage it to a certain
+extent."
+
+Falbe looked at him encouragingly.
+
+"Oh, you're getting on," he said. "You take yourself more for granted
+than you used to. I remember you when you used to be polite on purpose.
+It's doing things on purpose that makes one serious. If you ever play
+the fool on purpose, you instantly cease playing the fool."
+
+"Is that it?" said Michael.
+
+"Yes, of course. So come on Sunday, and forget all about it, except
+coming. And now, do you mind going away? I want to put in a couple of
+hours before lunch. You know what to practise till Tuesday, don't you?"
+
+That was the first Sunday evening that Michael had spent with his
+friends; after that, up till this present date in November, he had not
+missed a single one of those gatherings. They consisted almost entirely
+of men, and of the men there were many types, and many ages. Actors and
+artists, musicians and authors were indiscriminately mingled; it was the
+strangest conglomeration of diverse interests. But one interest, so it
+seemed to Michael, bound them all together; they were all doing in their
+different lives the things they most delighted in doing. There was the
+key that unlocked all the locks--namely, the enjoyment that inspired
+their work. The freemasonry of art and the freemasonry of the eager mind
+that looks out without verdict, but with only expectation and delight in
+experiment, passed like an open secret among them, secret because none
+spoke of it, open because it was so transparently obvious. And since
+this was so, every member of that heterogeneous community had a respect
+for his companions; the fact that they were there together showed that
+they had all passed this initiation, and knew what for them life meant.
+
+Very soon after dinner all sitting accommodation, other than the floor,
+was occupied; but then the floor held the later comers, and the
+smoke from many cigarettes and the babble of many voices made a
+constantly-ascending incense before the altar dedicated to the gods that
+inspire all enjoyable endeavour. Then Sylvia sang, and both those who
+cared to hear exquisite singing and those who did not were alike silent,
+for this was a prayer to the gods they all worshipped; and Falbe played,
+and there was a quartet of strings.
+
+After that less serious affairs held the rooms; an eminent actor was
+pleased to parody another eminent actor who was also present. This led
+to a scene in which each caricatured the other, and a French poet did
+gymnastic feats on the floor and upset a tray of soda-water, and a
+German conductor fluffed out his hair and died like Marguerite. And when
+in the earlier hours of the morning part of the guests had gone away,
+and part were broiling ham in the kitchen, Sylvia sang again, quite
+seriously, and Michael, in Hermann's absence, volunteered to play her
+accompaniment for her. She stood behind him, and by a finger on his
+shoulder directed him in the way she would have him go. Michael found
+himself suddenly and inexplicably understanding this; her finger, by its
+pressure or its light tapping, seemed to him to speak in a language that
+he found himself familiar with, and he slowed down stroking the notes,
+or quickened with staccato touch, as she wordlessly directed him.
+
+Out of all these things, which were but trivialities, pleasant,
+unthinking hours for all else concerned, several points stood out for
+Michael, points new and illuminating. The first was the simplicity of it
+all, the spontaneousness with which pleasure was born if only you took
+off your clothes, so to speak, and left them on the bank while you
+jumped in. All his life he had buttoned his jacket and crammed his hat
+on to his head. The second was the sense, indefinable but certain, that
+Hermann and Sylvia between them were the high priests of this memorable
+orgie.
+
+He himself had met, at dreadful, solemn evenings when Lady Ashbridge and
+his father stood at the head of the stairs, the two eminent actors who
+had romped to-night, and found them exceedingly stately personages, just
+as no doubt they had found him an icy and awkward young man. But they,
+like him, had taken their note on those different occasions from their
+environment. Perhaps if his father and mother came here . . . but
+Michael's imagination quailed before such a supposition.
+
+The third point, which gradually through these weeks began to haunt him
+more and more, was the personality of Sylvia. He had never come across
+a girl who in the least resembled her, probably because he had not
+attempted even to find in a girl, or to display in himself, the signals,
+winked across from one to the other, of human companionship. Always
+he had found a difficulty in talking to a girl, because he had, in his
+self-consciousness, thought about what he should say. There had been the
+cabalistic question of sex ever in front of him, a thing that troubled
+and deterred him. But Sylvia, with her hand on his shoulder, absorbed in
+her singing, and directing him only as she would have pressed the pedal
+of the piano if she had been playing to herself, was no more agitating
+than if she had been a man; she was just singing, just using him to help
+her singing. And even while Michael registered to himself this charming
+annihilation of sex, which allowed her to be to him no more than her
+brother was--less, in fact, but on the same plane--she had come to
+the end of her song, patted him on the back, as she would have patted
+anybody else, with a word of thanks, and, for him, suddenly leaped into
+significance. It was not only a singer who had sung, but an individual
+one called Sylvia Falbe. She took her place, at present a most
+inconspicuous one, on the back-cloth before which Michael's life was
+acted, towards which, when no action, so to speak, was taking place,
+his eyes naturally turned themselves. His father and mother were there,
+Francis also and Aunt Barbara, and of course, larger than the rest,
+Hermann. Now Sylvia was discernible, and, as the days went by and
+their meetings multiplied, she became bigger, walked into a nearer
+perspective. It did not occur to Michael, rightly, to imagine himself at
+all in love with her, for he was not. Only she had asserted herself on
+his consciousness.
+
+Not yet had she begun to trouble him, and there was no sign, either
+external or intimate, in his mind that he was sickening with the
+splendid malady. Indeed, the significance she held for him was rather
+that, though she was a girl, she presented none of the embarrassments
+which that sex had always held for him. She grew in comradeship; he
+found himself as much at ease with her as with her brother, and her
+charm was just that which had so quickly and strongly attracted Michael
+to Hermann. She was vivid in the same way as he was; she had the same
+warm, welcoming kindliness--the same complete absence of pose. You knew
+where you were with her, and hitherto, when Michael was with one of the
+young ladies brought down to Ashbridge to be looked at, he only wished
+that wherever he was he was somewhere else. But with Sylvia he had none
+of this self-consciousness; she was bonne camarade for him in exactly
+the same way as she was bonne camarade to the rest of the multitude
+which thronged the Sunday evenings, perfectly at ease with them, as they
+with her, in relationship entirely unsentimental.
+
+But through these weeks, up to this foggy November afternoon, Michael's
+most conscious preoccupation was his music. Falbe's principles in
+teaching were entirely heretical according to the traditional school;
+he gave Michael no scale to play, no dismal finger-exercise to fill the
+hours.
+
+"What is the good of them?" he asked. "They can only give you nimbleness
+and strength. Well, you shall acquire your nimbleness and strength by
+playing what is worth playing. Take good music, take Chopin or Bach or
+Beethoven, and practise one particular etude or fugue or sonata; you may
+choose anything you like, and learn your nimbleness and strength that
+way. Read, too; read for a couple of hours every day. The written
+language of music must become so familiar to you that it is to you
+precisely what a book or a newspaper is, so that whether you read it
+aloud--which is playing--or sit in your arm-chair with your feet on the
+fender, reading it not aloud on the piano, but to yourself, it conveys
+its definite meaning to you. At your lessons you will have to read aloud
+to me. But when you are reading to yourself, never pass over a bar that
+you don't understand. It has got to sound in your head, just as the
+words you read in a printed book really sound in your head if you read
+carefully and listen for them. You know exactly what they would be like
+if you said them aloud. Can you read, by the way? Have a try."
+
+Falbe got down a volume of Bach and opened it at random.
+
+"There," he said, "begin at the top of the page."
+
+"But I can't," said Michael. "I shall have to spell it out."
+
+"That's just what you mustn't do. Go ahead, and don't pause till you get
+to the bottom of the page. Count; start each bar when it comes to its
+turn, and play as many notes as you can in it."
+
+This was a dismal experience. Michael hitherto had gone on the
+painstaking and thorough plan of spelling out his notes with laborious
+care. Now Falbe's inexorable voice counted for him, until it was lost in
+inextinguishable laughter.
+
+"Go on, go on!" he shouted. "I thought it was Bach, and it is clearly
+Strauss's Don Quixote."
+
+Michael, flushed and determined, with grave, set mouth, ploughed his way
+through amazing dissonances, and at the end joined Falbe's laughter.
+
+"Oh dear," he said. "Very funny. But don't laugh so at me, Hermann."
+
+Falbe dried his eyes.
+
+"And what was it?" he said. "I declare it was the fourth fugue. An
+entirely different conception of it! A thoroughly original view! Now,
+what you've got to do, is to repeat that--not the same murder I mean,
+but other murders--for a couple of hours a day. . . . By degrees--you
+won't believe it--you will find you are not murdering any longer, but
+only mortally wounding. After six months I dare say you won't even be
+hurting your victims. All the same, you can begin with less muscular
+ones."
+
+In this way Michael's musical horizons were infinitely extended. Not
+only did this system of Falbe's of flying at new music, and going
+recklessly and regardlessly on, give quickness to his brain and finger,
+make his wits alert to pick up the new language he was learning, but
+it gloriously extended his vision and his range of country. He ran
+joyfully, though with a thousand falls and tumbles, through these new
+and wonderful vistas; he worshipped at the grave, Gothic sanctuaries of
+Beethoven, he roamed through the enchanted garden of Chopin, he felt the
+icy and eternal frosts of Russia, and saw in the northern sky the great
+auroras spread themselves in spear and sword of fire; he listened to the
+wisdom of Brahms, and passed through the noble and smiling country
+of Bach. All this, so to speak, was holiday travel, and between his
+journeys he applied himself with the same eager industry to the learning
+of his art, so that he might reproduce for himself and others true
+pictures of the scenes through which he scampered. Here Falbe was not so
+easily moved to laughter; he was as severe with Michael as he was with
+himself, when it was the question of learning some piece with a view
+to really playing it. There was no light-hearted hurrying on through
+blurred runs and false notes, slurred phrases and incomplete chords.
+Among these pieces which had to be properly learned was the 17th Prelude
+of Chopin, on hearing which at Baireuth on the tuneless and catarrhed
+piano Falbe had agreed to take Michael as a pupil. But when it was
+played again on Falbe's great Steinway, as a professed performance, a
+very different standard was required.
+
+Falbe stopped him at the end of the first two lines.
+
+"This won't do, Michael," he said. "You played it before for me to see
+whether you could play. You can. But it won't do to sketch it. Every
+note has got to be there; Chopin didn't write them by accident. He knew
+quite well what he was about. Begin again, please."
+
+This time Michael got not quite so far, when he was stopped again. He
+was playing without notes, and Falbe got up from his chair where he had
+the book open, and put it on the piano.
+
+"Do you find difficulty in memorising?" he asked.
+
+This was discouraging; Michael believed that he remembered easily; he
+also believed that he had long known this by heart.
+
+"No; I thought I knew it," he said.
+
+"Try again."
+
+This time Falbe stood by him, and suddenly put his finger down into the
+middle of Michael's hands, striking a note.
+
+"You left out that F sharp," he said. "Go on. . . . Now you are leaving
+out that E natural. Try to get it better by Thursday, and remember this,
+that playing, and all that differentiates playing from strumming, only
+begins when you can play all the notes that are put down for you to
+play without fail. You're beginning at the wrong end; you have admirable
+feeling about that prelude, but you needn't think about feeling till
+you've got all the notes at your fingers' ends. Then and not till then,
+you may begin to remember that you want to be a pianist. Now, what's the
+next thing?"
+
+Michael felt somewhat squashed and discouraged. He had thought he had
+really worked successfully at the thing he knew so well by sight. His
+heavy eyebrows drew together.
+
+"You told me to harmonise that Christmas carol," he remarked, rather
+shortly.
+
+Falbe put his hand on his shoulder.
+
+"Look here, Michael," he said, "you're vexed with me. Now, there's
+nothing to be vexed at. You know quite well you were leaving out lots of
+notes from those jolly fat chords, and that you weren't playing cleanly.
+Now I'm taking you seriously, and I won't have from you anything but
+the best you can do. You're not doing your best when you don't even play
+what is written. You can't begin to work at this till you do that."
+
+Michael had a moment's severe tussle with his temper. He felt vexed and
+disappointed that Hermann should have sent him back like a schoolboy
+with his exercise torn over. Not immediately did he confess to himself
+that he was completely in the wrong.
+
+"I'm doing the best I can," he said. "It's rather discouraging."
+
+He moved his big shoulders slightly, as if to indicate that Hermann's
+hand was not wanted there. Hermann kept it there.
+
+"It might be discouraging," he said, "if you were doing your best."
+
+Michael's ill-temper oozed from him.
+
+"I'm wrong," he said, turning round with the smile that made his ugly
+face so pleasant. "And I'm sorry both that I have been slack and that
+I've been sulky. Will that do?"
+
+Falbe laughed.
+
+"Very well indeed," he said. "Now for 'Good King Wenceslas.' Wasn't
+it--"
+
+"Yes; I got awfully interested over it, Hermann. I thought I would try
+and work it up into a few variations."
+
+"Let's hear," said Falbe.
+
+This was a vastly different affair. Michael had shown both ingenuity and
+a great sense of harmonic beauty in the arrangement of the very simple
+little tune that Falbe had made him exercise his ear over, and the
+half-dozen variations that followed showed a wonderfully mature
+handling. The air which he dealt with haunted them as a sort of unseen
+presence. It moved in a tiny gavotte, or looked on at a minuet measure;
+it wailed, yet without being positively heard, in a little dirge of
+itself; it broadened into a march, it shouted in a bravura of rapid
+octaves, and finally asserted itself, heard once more, over a great
+scale base of bells.
+
+Falbe, as was his habit when interested, sat absolutely still, but
+receptive and alert, instead of jerking and fidgeting as he had done
+over Michael's fiasco in the Chopin prelude, and at the end he jumped up
+with a certain excitement.
+
+"Do you know what you've done?" he said. "You've done something that's
+really good. Faults? Yes, millions; but there's a first-rate imagination
+at the bottom of it. How did it happen?"
+
+Michael flushed with pleasure.
+
+"Oh, they sang themselves," he said, "and I learned them. But will it
+really do? Is there anything in it?"
+
+"Yes, old boy, there's King Wenceslas in it, and you've dressed him up
+well. Play that last one again."
+
+The last one was taxing to the fingers, but Michael's big hands banged
+out the octave scale in the bass with wonderful ease, and Falbe gave a
+great guffaw of pleasure at the rollicking conclusion.
+
+"Write them all down," he said, "and try if you can hear it singing half
+a dozen more. If you can, write them down also, and give me leave to
+play the lot at my concert in January."
+
+Michael gasped.
+
+"You don't mean that?" he said.
+
+"Certainly I do. It's a fine bit of stuff."
+
+It was with these variations, now on the point of completion that
+Michael meant to spend his solitary and rapturous evening. The spirits
+of the air--whatever those melodious sprites may be--had for the last
+month made themselves very audible to him, and the half-dozen further
+variations that Hermann had demanded had rung all day in his head. Now,
+as they neared completion, he found that they ceased their singing;
+their work of dictation was done; he had to this extent expressed
+himself, and they haunted him no longer. At present he had but jotted
+down the skeleton of bars that could be filled in afterwards, and it
+gave him enormous pleasure to see the roles reversed and himself out of
+his own brain, setting Falbe his task.
+
+But he felt much more than this. He had done something. Michael, the
+dumb, awkward Michael, was somehow revealed on those eight pages of
+music. All his twenty-five years he had stood wistfully inarticulate,
+unable, so it had seemed to him, to show himself, to let himself out.
+And not till now, when he had found this means of access, did he know
+how passionately he had desired it, nor how immensely, in the process
+of so doing, his desire had grown. He must find out more ways, other
+channels of projecting himself. The need for that, as of a diver
+throwing himself into the empty air and the laughing waters below him,
+suddenly took hold of him.
+
+He took a clean sheet of music paper, into which he placed his pages,
+and with a pleasurable sense of pomp wrote in the centre of it:
+
+     VARIATIONS ON AN AIR.
+
+           By
+
+     Michael Comber.
+
+He paused a moment, then took up his pen again.
+
+"Dedicated to Sylvia Falbe," he wrote at the top.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Michael had been so engrossingly employed since his return to London in
+the autumn that the existence of other ties and other people apart from
+those immediately connected with his work had worn a very shadow-like
+aspect. He had, it is true, written with some regularity to his mother,
+finding, somewhat to his dismay, how very slight the common ground
+between them was for purposes of correspondence. He could outline the
+facts that he had been to several concerts, that he had seen much of
+his music-master, that he had been diligent at his work, but he realised
+that there was nothing in detail about those things that could possibly
+interest her, and that nothing except them really interested him. She
+on her side had little to say except to record the welfare of Petsy, to
+remark on the beauty of October, and tell him how many shooting parties
+they had had.
+
+His correspondence with his father had been less frequent, and
+absolutely one-sided, since Lord Ashbridge took no notice at all of his
+letters. Michael regretted this, as showing that he was still outcast,
+but it cannot be said to have come between him and the sunshine, for he
+had begun to manufacture the sunshine within, that internal happiness
+which his environment and way of life produced, which seemed to be
+independent of all that was not directly connected with it. But a letter
+which he received next morning from his mother stated, in addition to
+the fact that Petsy had another of her tiresome bilious attacks (poor
+lamb), that his father and she thought it right that he should come down
+to Ashbridge for Christmas. It conveyed the sense that at this joyful
+season a truce, probably limited in duration, and, even while it lasted,
+of the nature of a strongly-armed neutrality, was proclaimed, but the
+prospect was not wholly encouraging, for Lady Ashbridge added that
+she hoped Michael would not "go on" vexing his father. What precisely
+Michael was expected to do in order to fulfil that wish was not further
+stated, but he wrote dutifully enough to say that he would come down at
+Christmas.
+
+But the letter rekindled his dormant sense of there being other people
+in the world beside his immediate circle; also, indefinably, it gave
+him the sense that his mother wanted him. That should be so then, and
+sequentially he remembered with a pang of self-reproach that he had not
+as much as indicated his presence in London to Aunt Barbara, or set eyes
+on her since their meeting in August. He knew she was in London, since
+he had seen her name in some paragraph in the papers not long before,
+and instantly wrote to ask her to dine with him at a near date. Her
+answer was characteristic.
+
+"Of course I'll dine with you, my dear," she wrote; "it will be
+delightful. And what has happened to you? Your letter actually conveyed
+a sense of cordiality. You never used to be cordial. And I wish to meet
+some of your nice friends. Ask one or two, please--a prima donna of some
+kind and a pianist, I think. I want them weird and original--the prima
+donna with short hair, and the pianist with long. In Tony's new station
+in life I never see anybody except the sort of people whom your father
+likes. Are you forgiven yet, by the way?"
+
+Michael found himself on the grin at the thought of Aunt Barbara
+suddenly encountering the two magnificent Falbes (prima donna and
+pianist exactly as she had desired) as representing the weird sort of
+people whom she pictured his living among, and the result quite came
+up to his expectations. As usual, Aunt Barbara was late, and came in
+talking rapidly about the various causes that had detained her, which
+her fruitful imagination had suggested to her as she dressed. In order,
+perhaps, to suit herself to the circle in which she would pass the
+evening, she had put on (or, rather, it looked as if her maid had thrown
+at her) a very awful sort of tea-gown, brown and prickly-looking, and
+adapted to Bohemian circles. She, with the same lively imagination, had
+pictured Michael in a velveteen coat and soft shirt, the pianist as very
+small, with spectacles and long hair, and the prima donna a full-blown
+kind of barmaid with Roman pearls. . . .
+
+"Yes, my dear, I know I am late," she began before she was inside the
+door, "but Og had so much to say, and there was a block at Hyde Park
+Corner. My dear Michael, how smart you look!"
+
+She came round the corner of the screen and the Falbes burst upon her,
+Hermann and Sylvia standing by the fire. For the short, spectacled
+pianist there was this very tall, English-looking young man, upright and
+soldierly, with his handsome, boyish face and well-fitting clothes. That
+was bad enough, but infinitely worse was she who was to have been the
+full-blown barmaid. Instead was this magnificent girl, nearly as tall as
+her brother, with her small oval face crowning the column of her neck,
+her eyes merry, her mouth laughing at some brotherly retort that Hermann
+had just made. Aunt Barbara took her in with one second's survey--her
+face, her neck, her beautiful dress, her whole air of ease and
+good-breeding, and gave a despairing glance at her own prickly tea-gown.
+For the moment, amiably accustomed as she was to laugh at herself, she
+did not find it humourous.
+
+"Miss Sylvia Falbe, Aunt Barbara," said Michael with a little tremor
+in his voice; "and Mr. Hermann Falbe, Lady Barbara Jerome," he added,
+rather as if he expected nobody to believe it.
+
+Aunt Barbara made the best of it: shook hands in her jolly manner, and
+burst into laughter.
+
+"Michael, I could slay you," she said; "but before I do that I must tell
+your friends all about it. This horrible nephew of mine, Miss Falbe,
+promised me two weird musicians, and I expected--I really can't tell you
+what I expected--but there were to be spectacles and velveteen coats and
+the general air of an afternoon concert at Clapham Junction. But it is
+nice to be made such a fool of. I feel precisely like an elderly and
+sour governess who has been ordered to come down to dinner so that
+there shan't be thirteen. Give me your arm, Mr. Falbe, and take me in
+to dinner at once, where I may drown my embarrassment in soup. Or does
+Michael go in first? Go on, wretch!"
+
+Presently they were seated at dinner, and Aunt Barbara could not help
+enlarging a little on her own discomfiture.
+
+"It is all your fault, Michael," she said. "You have been in London all
+these weeks without letting me know anything about you or your friends,
+or what you were doing; so naturally I supposed you were leading some
+obscure kind of existence. Instead of which I find this sort of thing.
+My dear, what good soup! I shall see if I can't induce your cook to
+leave you. But bachelors always have the best of everything. Now tell
+me about your visit to Germany. Which was the point where we
+parted--Baireuth, wasn't it? I would not go to Baireuth with anybody!"
+
+"I went with Mr. Falbe," said Michael.
+
+"Ah, Mr. Falbe has not asked me yet. I may have to revise what I say,"
+said Aunt Barbara daringly.
+
+"I didn't ask Michael," said Hermann. "I got into his carriage as the
+train was moving; and my luggage was left behind."
+
+"I was left behind," said Sylvia, "which was worse. But I sent Hermann's
+luggage."
+
+"So expeditiously that it arrived the day before we left for Munich,"
+remarked Hermann.
+
+"And that's all the gratitude I get. But in the interval you lived upon
+Lord Comber."
+
+"I do still in the money I earn by giving him music lessons. Mike, have
+you finished the Variations yet?"
+
+"Variations--what are Variations?" asked Aunt Barbara.
+
+"Yes, two days ago. Variations are all the things you think about on the
+piano, Aunt Barbara, when you are playing a tune made by somebody else."
+
+"Should I like them? Will Mr. Falbe play them to me?" asked she.
+
+"I daresay he will if he can. But I thought you loathed music."
+
+"It certainly depends on who makes it," said Aunt Barbara. "I don't like
+ordinary music, because the person who made it doesn't matter to me.
+But if, so to speak, it sounds like somebody I know, it is a different
+matter."
+
+Michael turned to Sylvia.
+
+"I want to ask your leave for something I have already done," he said.
+
+"And if I don't give it you?"
+
+"Then I shan't tell you what it is."
+
+Sylvia looked at him with her candid friendly eyes. Her brother always
+told her that she never looked at anybody except her friends; if she was
+engaged in conversation with a man she did not like, she looked at his
+shirt-stud or at a point slightly above his head.
+
+"Then, of course, I give in," she said. "I must give you leave if
+otherwise I shan't know what you have done. But it's a mean trick. Tell
+me at once."
+
+"I've dedicated the Variations to you," he said.
+
+Sylvia flushed with pleasure.
+
+"Oh, but that's absolutely darling of you," she said. "Have you, really?
+Do you mean it?"
+
+"If you'll allow me."
+
+"Allow you? Hermann, the Variations are mine. Isn't it too lovely?"
+
+It was at this moment that Aunt Barbara happened to glance at Michael,
+and it suddenly struck her that it was a perfectly new Michael whom she
+looked at. She knew and was secretly amused at the fiasco that always
+attended the introduction of amiable young ladies to Ashbridge, and had
+warned her sister-in-law that Michael, when he chose the girl he wanted,
+would certainly do it on his own initiative. Now she felt sure that
+Michael, though he might not be aware of it himself, was, even if he had
+not chosen, beginning to choose. There was that in his eyes which
+none of the importations to Ashbridge had ever seen there, that eager
+deferential attention, which shows that a young man is interested
+because it is a girl he is talking to. That, she knew, had never been
+characteristic of Michael; indeed, it would not have been far from the
+truth to say that the fact that he was talking to a girl was sufficient
+to make his countenance wear an expression of polite boredom. Then for a
+while, as dinner progressed, she doubted the validity of her conclusion,
+for the Michael who was entertaining her to-night was wholly different
+from the Michael she had known and liked and pitied. She felt that she
+did not know this new one yet, but she was certain that she liked him,
+and equally sure that she did not pity him at all. He had found his
+place, he had found his work; he evidently fitted into his life, which,
+after all, is the surest ground of happiness, and it might be that it
+was only general joy, so to speak, that kindled that pleasant fire in
+his face. And then once more she went back to her first conclusion, for
+talking to Michael herself she saw, as a woman so infallibly sees, that
+he gave her but the most superficial attention--sufficient, indeed, to
+allow him to answer intelligently and laugh at the proper places, but
+his mind was not in the least occupied with her. If Sylvia moved his
+glance flickered across in her direction: it was she who gave him his
+alertness. Aunt Barbara felt that she could have told him truthfully
+that he was in love with her, and she rather thought that it would be
+news to him; probably he did not know it yet himself. And she wondered
+what his father would say when he knew it.
+
+"And then Munich," she said, violently recalling Michael's attention
+towards her. "Munich I could have borne better than Baireuth, and when
+Mr. Falbe asks me there I shall probably go. Your Uncle Tony was in
+Germany then, by the way; he went over at the invitation of the Emperor
+to the manoeuvres."
+
+"Did he? The Emperor came to Munich for a day during them. He was at the
+opera," said Michael.
+
+"You didn't speak to him, I suppose?" she asked.
+
+"Yes; he sent for me, and talked a lot. In fact, he talked too much,
+because I didn't hear a note of the second act."
+
+Aunt Barbara became infinitely more interested.
+
+"Tell me all about it, Michael," she said. "What did he talk about?"
+
+"Everything, as far as I can remember, England, Ashbridge, armies,
+navies, music. Hermann says he cast pearls before swine--"
+
+"And his tone, his attitude?" she asked.
+
+"Towards us?--towards England? Immensely friendly, and most inquisitive.
+I was never asked so many questions in so short a time."
+
+Aunt Barbara suddenly turned to Falbe.
+
+"And you?" she asked. "Were you with Michael?"
+
+"No, Lady Barbara. I had no pearls."
+
+"And are you naturalised English?" she asked.
+
+"No; I am German."
+
+She slid swiftly off the topic.
+
+"Do you wonder I ask, with your talking English so perfectly?" she said.
+"You should hear me talking French when we are entertaining Ambassadors
+and that sort of persons. I talk it so fast that nobody can understand a
+word I say. That is a defensive measure, you must observe, because even
+if I talked it quite slowly they would understand just as little. But
+they think it is the pace that stupefies them, and they leave me in a
+curious, dazed condition. And now Miss Falbe and I are going to leave
+you two. Be rather a long time, dear Michael, so that Mr. Falbe can tell
+you what he thinks of me, and his sister shall tell me what she thinks
+of you. Afterwards you and I will tell each other, if it is not too
+fearful."
+
+This did not express quite accurately Lady Barbara's intentions, for she
+chiefly wanted to find out what she thought of Sylvia.
+
+"And you are great friends, you three?" she said as they settled
+themselves for the prolonged absence of the two men.
+
+Sylvia smiled; she smiled, Aunt Barbara noticed, almost entirely with
+her eyes, using her mouth only when it came to laughing; but her eyes
+smiled quite charmingly.
+
+"That's always rather a rash thing to pronounce on," she said. "I can
+tell you for certain that Hermann and I are both very fond of him, but
+it is presumptuous for us to say that he is equally devoted to us."
+
+"My dear, there is no call for modesty about it," said Barbara. "Between
+you--for I imagine it is you who have done it--between you you have made
+a perfectly different creature of the boy. You've made him flower."
+
+Sylvia became quite grave.
+
+"Oh, I do hope he likes us," she said. "He is so likable himself."
+
+Barbara nodded
+
+"And you've had the good sense to find that out," she said. "It's
+astonishing how few people knew it. But then, as I said, Michael hadn't
+flowered. No one understood him, or was interested. Then he suddenly
+made up his mind last summer what he wanted to do and be, and
+immediately did and was it."
+
+"I think he told Hermann," said she. "His father didn't approve, did
+he?"
+
+"Approve? My dear, if you knew my brother you would know that the only
+things he approves of are those which Michael isn't."
+
+Sylvia spread her fine hands out to the blaze, warming them and shading
+her face.
+
+"Michael always seems to us--" she began. "Ah, I called him Michael by
+mistake."
+
+"Then do it on purpose next time," remarked Barbara. "What does Michael
+seem?"
+
+"Ah, but don't let him know I called him Michael," said Sylvia in some
+horror. "There is nothing so awful as to speak of people formally to
+their faces, and intimately behind their backs. But Hermann is always
+talking of him as Michael."
+
+"And Michael always seems--"
+
+"Oh, yes; he always seems to me to have been part of us, of Hermann and
+me, for years. He's THERE, if you know what I mean, and so few people
+are there. They walk about your life, and go in and out, so to speak,
+but Michael stops. I suppose it's because he is so natural."
+
+Aunt Barbara had been a diplomatist long before her husband, and fearful
+of appearing inquisitive about Sylvia's impression of Michael, which she
+really wanted to inquire into, instantly changed the subject.
+
+"Ah, everybody who has got definite things to do is natural," she said.
+"It is only the idle people who have leisure to look at themselves in
+the glass and pose. And I feel sure that you have definite things to do
+and plenty of them, my dear. What are they?"
+
+"Oh, I sing a little," said Sylvia.
+
+"That is the first unnatural thing you have said. I somehow feel that
+you sing a great deal."
+
+Aunt Barbara suddenly got up.
+
+"My dear, you are not THE Miss Falbe, are you, who drove London crazy
+with delight last summer. Don't tell me you are THE Miss Falbe?"
+
+Sylvia laughed.
+
+"Do you know, I'm afraid I must be," she said. "Isn't it dreadful to
+have to say that after your description?"
+
+Aunt Barbara sat down again, in a sort of calm despair.
+
+"If there are any more shocks coming for me to-night," she said, "I
+think I had better go home. I have encountered a perfectly new nephew
+Michael. I have dressed myself like a suburban housekeeper to meet a
+Poiret, so don't deny it, and having humourously told Michael I wished
+to see a prima donna and a pianist, he takes me at my word and produces
+THE Miss Falbe. I'm glad I knew that in time; I should infallibly have
+asked you to sing, and if you had done so--you are probably good-natured
+enough to have done even that--I should have given the drawing-room
+gasp at the end, and told your brother that I thought you sang very
+prettily."
+
+Sylvia laughed.
+
+"But really it wasn't my fault, Lady Barbara," she said. "When we met I
+couldn't have said, 'Beware! I am THE Miss Falbe.'"
+
+"No, my dear; but I think you ought, somehow, to have conveyed the
+impression that you were a tremendous swell. You didn't. I have been
+thinking of you as a charming girl, and nothing more."
+
+"But that's quite good enough for me," said Sylvia.
+
+The two young men joined them after this, and Hermann speedily became
+engrossed in reading the finished Variations. Some of these pleased him
+mightily; one he altogether demurred to.
+
+"It's just a crib, Mike," he said. "The critics would say I had
+forgotten it, and put in instead what I could remember of a variation
+out of the Handel theme. That next one's, oh, great fun. But I wish
+you would remember that we all haven't got great orang-outang paws like
+you."
+
+Aunt Barbara stopped in the middle of her sentence; she knew Michael's
+old sensitiveness about these physical disabilities, and she had a
+moment's cold horror at the thought of Falbe having said so miserably
+tactless a thing to him. But the horror was of infinitesimal duration,
+for she heard Michael's laugh as they leaned over the top of the piano
+together.
+
+"I wish you had, Hermann," he said. "I know you'll bungle those tenths."
+
+Falbe moved to the piano-seat.
+
+"Oh, let's have a shot at it," he said. "If Lady Barbara won't mind,
+play that one through to me first, Mike."
+
+"Oh, presently, Hermann," he said. "It makes such an infernal row that
+you can't hear anything else afterwards. Do sing, Miss Sylvia; my aunt
+won't really mind--will you, Aunt Barbara?"
+
+"Michael, I have just learned that this is THE Miss Falbe," she said. "I
+am suffering from shock. Do let me suffer from coals of fire, too."
+
+Michael gently edged Hermann away from the music-stool. Much as he
+enjoyed his master's accompaniment he was perfectly sure that he
+preferred, if possible, to play for Sylvia himself than have the
+pleasure of listening to anybody else.
+
+"And may I play for you, Miss Sylvia?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, will you? Thanks, Lord Comber."
+
+Hermann moved away.
+
+"And so Mr. Hermann sits down by Lady Barbara while Lord Comber plays
+for Miss Sylvia," he observed, with emphasis on the titles.
+
+A sudden amazing boldness seized Michael.
+
+"Sylvia, then," he said.
+
+"All right, Michael," answered the girl, laughing.
+
+She came and stood on the left of the piano, slightly behind him.
+
+"And what are we going to have?" asked Michael.
+
+"It must be something we both know, for I've brought no music," said
+she.
+
+Michael began playing the introduction to the Hugo Wolff song which
+he had accompanied for her one Sunday night at their house. He knew it
+perfectly by heart, but stumbled a little over the difficult syncopated
+time. This was not done without purpose, for the next moment he felt her
+hand on his shoulder marking it for him.
+
+"Yes, that's right," she said. "Now you've got it." And Michael smiled
+sweetly at his own amazing ingenuity.
+
+Hermann put down the Variations, which he still had in his hand, when
+Sylvia's voice began. Unaccustomed as she was to her accompanist, his
+trained ear told him that she was singing perfectly at ease, and was
+completely at home with her player. Occasionally she gave Michael some
+little indication, as she had done before, but for the most part her
+fingers rested immobile on his shoulder, and he seemed to understand
+her perfectly. Somehow this was a surprise to him; he had not known that
+Michael possessed that sort of second-sight that unerringly feels and
+translates into the keys the singer's mood. For himself he always had to
+attend most closely when he was playing for his sister, but familiar as
+he was with her singing, he felt that Michael divined her certainly as
+well as himself, and he listened to the piano more than to the voice.
+
+"You extraordinary creature," he said when the song was over. "Where did
+you learn to accompany?"
+
+Suddenly Michael felt an access of shyness, as if he had been surprised
+when he thought himself private.
+
+"Oh, I've played it before for Miss--I mean for Sylvia," he said.
+
+Then he turned to the girl.
+
+"Thanks, awfully," he said. "And I'm greedy. May we have one more?"
+
+He slid into the opening bars of "Who is Sylvia?" That song, since
+he had heard her sing it at her recital in the summer, had grown in
+significance to him, even as she had. It had seemed part of her then,
+but then she was a stranger. To-night it was even more intimately part
+of her, and she was a friend.
+
+Hermann strolled across to the fireplace at the end of this, and lit a
+cigarette.
+
+"My sister's a blatant egoist, Lady Barbara," he said. "She loves
+singing about herself. And she lays it on pretty thick, too, doesn't
+she? Now, Sylvia, if you've finished--quite finished, I mean--do come
+and sit down and let me try these Variations--"
+
+"Shall we surrender, Michael?" asked the girl. "Or shall we stick to the
+piano, now we've got it? If Hermann once sits down, you know, we shan't
+get him away for the rest of the evening. I can't sing any more, but we
+might play a duet to keep him out."
+
+Hermann rushed to the piano, took his sister by the shoulders, and
+pushed her into a chair.
+
+"You sit there," he said, "and listen to something not about yourself.
+Michael, if you don't come away from that piano, I shall take Sylvia
+home at once. Now you may all talk as much as you like; you won't
+interrupt me one atom--but you'll have to talk loud in certain parts."
+
+Then a feat of marvellous execution began. Michael had taken an evil
+pleasure in giving his master, for whom he slaved with so unwearied a
+diligence, something that should tax his powers, and he gave a great
+crash of laughter when for a moment Hermann was brought to a complete
+standstill in an octave passage of triplets against quavers, and the
+performer exultantly joined in it, as he pushed his hair back from his
+forehead, and made a second attempt.
+
+"It isn't decent to ask a fellow to read that," he shouted. "It's a
+crime; it's a scandal."
+
+"My dear, nobody asked you to read it," said Sylvia.
+
+"Silence, you chit! Mike, come here a minute. Sit down one second and
+play that. Promise to get up again, though, immediately. Just these
+three bars--yes, I see. An orang-outang apparently can do it, so why
+not I? Am I not much better than they? Go away, please; or, rather, stop
+there and turn over. Why couldn't you have finished the page with the
+last act, and started this one fresh, instead of making this Godforsaken
+arrangement? Now!"
+
+A very simple little minuet measure followed this outrageous passage,
+and Hermann's exquisite lightness of touch made it sound strangely
+remote, as if from a mile away, or a hundred years ago, some graceful
+echo was evoked again. Then the little dirge wept for the memories
+of something that had never happened, and leaving out the number he
+disapproved of, as reminiscent of the Handel theme, Hermann gathered
+himself up again for the assertion of the original tune, with its bars
+of scale octaves. The contagious jollity of it all seized the others,
+and Sylvia, with full voice, and Aunt Barbara, in a strange hooting,
+sang to it.
+
+Then Hermann banged out the last chord, and jumped up from his seat,
+rolling up the music.
+
+"I go straight home," he said, "and have a peaceful hour with it.
+Michael, old boy, how did you do it? You've been studying seriously for
+a few months only, and so this must all have been in you before. And
+you've come to the age you are without letting any of it out. I suppose
+that's why it has come with a rush. You knew it all along, while you
+were wasting your time over drilling your toy soldiers. Come on, Sylvia,
+or I shall go without you. Good night, Lady Barbara. Half-past ten
+to-morrow, Michael."
+
+Protest was clearly useless; and, having seen the two off, Michael came
+upstairs again to Aunt Barbara, who had no intention of going away just
+yet.
+
+"And so these are the people you have been living with," she said. "No
+wonder you had not time to come and see me. Do they always go that sort
+of pace--it is quicker than when I talk French."
+
+Michael sank into a chair.
+
+"Oh, yes, that's Hermann all over," he said. "But--but just think what
+it means to me! He's going to play my tunes at his concert. Michael
+Comber, Op. 1. O Lord! O Lord!"
+
+"And you just met him in the train?" said Aunt Barbara.
+
+"Yes; second class, Victoria Station, with Sylvia on the platform. I
+didn't much notice Sylvia then."
+
+This and the inference that naturally followed was as much as could be
+expected, and Aunt Barbara did not appear to wait for anything more on
+the subject of Sylvia. She had seen sufficient of the situation to
+know where Michael was most certainly bound for. Yet the very fact of
+Sylvia's outspoken friendliness with him made her wonder a little as to
+what his reception would be. She would hardly have said so plainly that
+she and her brother were devoted to him if she had been devoted to him
+with that secret tenderness which, in its essentials, is reticent about
+itself. Her half-hour's conversation with the girl had given her a
+certain insight into her; still more had her attitude when she stood by
+Michael as he played for her, and put her hand on his shoulder precisely
+as she would have done if it had been another girl who was seated at the
+piano. Without doubt Michael had a real existence for her, but there
+was no sign whatever that she hailed it, as a girl so unmistakably does,
+when she sees it as part of herself.
+
+"More about them," she said. "What are they? Who are they?"
+
+He outlined for her, giving the half-English, half-German parentage, the
+shadow-like mother, the Bavarian father, Sylvia's sudden and comet-like
+rising in the musical heaven, while her brother, seven years her senior,
+had spent his time in earning in order to give her the chance which she
+had so brilliantly taken. Now it was to be his turn, the shackles of his
+drudgery no longer impeded him, and he, so Michael radiantly prophesied,
+was to have his rocket-like leap to the zenith, also.
+
+"And he's German?" she asked.
+
+"Yes. Wasn't he rude about my being a toy soldier? But that's the
+natural German point of view, I suppose."
+
+Michael strolled to the fireplace.
+
+"Hermann's so funny," he said. "For days and weeks together you would
+think he was entirely English, and then a word slips from him like that,
+which shows he is entirely German. He was like that in Munich, when the
+Emperor appeared and sent for me."
+
+Aunt Barbara drew her chair a little nearer the fire, and sat up.
+
+"I want to hear about that," she said.
+
+"But I've told you; he was tremendously friendly in a national manner."
+
+"And that seemed to you real?" she asked.
+
+Michael considered.
+
+"I don't know that it did," he said. "It all seemed to me rather
+feverish, I think."
+
+"And he asked quantities of questions, I think you said."
+
+"Hundreds. He was just like what he was when he came to Ashbridge. He
+reviewed the Yeomanry, and shot pheasants, and spent the afternoon in a
+steam launch, apparently studying the deep-water channel of the river,
+where it goes underneath my father's place; and then in the evening
+there was a concert."
+
+Aunt Barbara did not heed the concert.
+
+"Do you mean the channel up from Harwich," she asked, "of which the
+Admiralty have the secret chart?"
+
+"I fancy they have," said Michael. "And then after the concert there was
+the torchlight procession, with the bonfire on the top of the hill."
+
+"I wasn't there. What else?"
+
+"I think that's all," said Michael. "But what are you driving at, Aunt
+Barbara?"
+
+She was silent a moment.
+
+"I'm driving at this," she said. "The Germans are accumulating a vast
+quantity of knowledge about England. Tony, for instance, has a German
+valet, and when he went down to Portsmouth the other day to see the
+American ship that was there, he took him with him. And the man took a
+camera and was found photographing where no photography is allowed. Did
+you see anything of a camera when the Emperor came to Ashbridge?"
+
+Michael thought.
+
+"Yes; one of his staff was clicking away all day," he said. "He sent a
+lot of them to my mother."
+
+"And, we may presume, kept some copies himself," remarked Aunt Barbara
+drily. "Really, for childish simplicity the English are the biggest
+fools in creation."
+
+"But do you mean--"
+
+"I mean that the Germans are a very knowledge-seeking people, and that
+we gratify their desires in a very simple fashion. Do you think they are
+so friendly, Michael? Do you know, for instance, what is a very common
+toast in German regimental messes? They do not drink it when there are
+foreigners there, but one night during the manoeuvres an officer in
+a mess where Tony was dining got slightly 'on,' as you may say, and
+suddenly drank to 'Der Tag.'"
+
+"That means 'The Day,'" said Michael confidently.
+
+"It does; and what day? The day when Germany thinks that all is ripe
+for a war with us. 'Der Tag' will dawn suddenly from a quiet, peaceful
+night, when they think we are all asleep, and when they have got all the
+information they think is accessible. War, my dear."
+
+Michael had never in his life seen his aunt so serious, and he was
+amazed at her gravity.
+
+"There are hundreds and hundreds of their spies all over England," she
+said, "and hundreds of their agents all over America. Deep, patient
+Germany, as Carlyle said. She's as patient as God and as deep as the
+sea. They are working, working, while our toy soldiers play golf. I
+agree with that adorable pianist; and, what's more, I believe they think
+that 'Der Tag' is near to dawn. Tony says that their manoeuvres this
+year were like nothing that has ever been seen before. Germany is a
+fighting machine without parallel in the history of the world."
+
+She got up and stood with Michael near the fireplace.
+
+"And they think their opportunity is at hand," she said, "though not
+for a moment do they relax their preparations. We are their real enemy,
+don't you see? They can fight France with one hand and Russia with the
+other; and in a few months' time now they expect we shall be in the
+throes of an internal revolution over this Irish business. They may be
+right, but there is just the possibility that they may be astoundingly
+wrong. The fact of the great foreign peril--this nightmare, this
+Armageddon of European war--may be exactly that which will pull us
+together. But their diplomatists, anyhow, are studying the Irish
+question very closely, and German gold, without any doubt at all, is
+helping the Home Rule party. As a nation we are fast asleep. I wonder
+what we shall be like when we wake. Shall we find ourselves already
+fettered when we wake, or will there be one moment, just one moment, in
+which we can spring up? At any rate, hitherto, the English have always
+been at their best, not their worst, in desperate positions. They hate
+exciting themselves, and refuse to do it until the crisis is actually on
+them. But then they become disconcertingly serious and cool-headed."
+
+"And you think the Emperor--" began Michael.
+
+"I think the Emperor is the hardest worker in all Germany," said
+Barbara. "I believe he is trying (and admirably succeeding) to make us
+trust his professions of friendship. He has a great eye for detail, too;
+it seemed to him worth while to assure you even, my dear Michael, of his
+regard and affection for England. He was always impressing on Tony the
+same thing, though to him, of course, he said that if there was any
+country nearer to his heart than England it was America. Stuff and
+nonsense, my dear!"
+
+All this, though struck in a more serious key than was usual with Aunt
+Barbara, was quite characteristic of her. She had the quality of mind
+which when occupied with one idea is occupied with it to the exclusion
+of all others; she worked at full power over anything she took up. But
+now she dismissed it altogether.
+
+"You see what a diplomatist I have become," she said. "It is a
+fascinating business: one lives in an atmosphere that is charged with
+secret affairs, and it infects one like the influenza. You catch it
+somehow, and have a feverish cold of your own. And I am quite useful to
+him. You see, I am such a chatterbox that people think I let out things
+by accident, which I never do. I let out what I want to let out on
+purpose, and they think they are pumping me. I had a long conversation
+the other day with one of the German Embassy, all about Irish affairs.
+They are hugely interested about Irish affairs, and I just make a note
+of that; but they can make as many notes as they please about what
+I say, and no one will be any the wiser. In fact, they will be the
+foolisher. And now I suppose I had better take myself away."
+
+"Don't do anything of the kind," said Michael.
+
+"But I must. And if when you are down at Ashbridge at Christmas you
+find strangers hanging about the deep-water reach, you might just let me
+know. It's no use telling your father, because he will certainly think
+they have come to get a glimpse of him as he plays golf. But I expect
+you'll be too busy thinking about that new friend of yours, and perhaps
+his sister. What did she tell me we had got to do? 'To her garlands let
+us bring,' was it not? You and I will both send wreaths, Michael, though
+not for her funeral. Now don't be a hermit any more, but come and see
+me. You shall take your garland girl into dinner, if she will come,
+too; and her brother shall certainly sit next me. I am so glad you have
+become yourself at last. Go on being yourself more and more, my dear: it
+suits you."
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Some fortnight later, and not long before Michael was leaving town for
+his Christmas visit to Ashbridge, Sylvia and her brother were lingering
+in the big studio from which the last of their Sunday evening guests had
+just departed. The usual joyous chaos consequent on those entertainments
+reigned: the top of the piano was covered with the plates and glasses of
+those who had made an alfresco supper (or breakfast) of fried bacon and
+beer before leaving; a circle of cushions were ranged on the floor round
+the fire, for it was a bitterly cold night, and since, for some reason,
+a series of charades had been spontaneously generated, there was lying
+about an astonishing collection of pillow-cases, rugs, and table-cloths,
+and such articles of domestic and household use as could be converted
+into clothes for this purpose. But the event of the evening had
+undoubtedly been Hermann's performance of the "Wenceslas Variations";
+these he had now learned, and, as he had promised Michael, was going
+to play them at his concert in the Steinway Hall in January. To-night
+a good many musician friends had attended the Sunday evening gathering,
+and there had been no two opinions about the success of them.
+
+"I was talking to Arthur Lagden about them," said Falbe, naming a
+prominent critic of the day, "and he would hardly believe that they were
+an Opus I., or that Michael had not been studying music technically for
+years instead of six months. But that's the odd thing about Mike; he's
+so mature."
+
+It was not unusual for the brother and sister to sit up like this, till
+any hour, after their guests had gone; and Sylvia collected a bundle
+of cushions and lay full length on the floor, with her feet towards the
+fire. For both of them the week was too busy on six days for them to
+indulge that companionship, sometimes full of talk, sometimes consisting
+of those dropped words and long silences, on which intimacy lives;
+and they both enjoyed, above all hours in the week, this time that lay
+between the friendly riot of Sunday evening and the starting of work
+again on Monday. There was between them that bond which can scarcely
+exist between husband and wife, since it almost necessarily implies the
+close consanguinity of brother and sister, and postulates a certain sort
+of essential community of nature, founded not on tastes, nor even on
+affection, but on the fact that the same blood beats in the two. Here
+an intense affection, too strong to be ever demonstrative, fortified
+it, and both brother and sister talked to each other, as if they were
+speaking to some physically independent piece of themselves.
+
+Sylvia had nothing apparently to add on the subject of Michael's
+maturity. Instead she just raised her head, which was not quite high
+enough.
+
+"Stuff another cushion under my head, Hermann," she said. "Thanks; now
+I'm completely comfortable, you will be relieved to hear."
+
+Hermann gazed at the fire in silence.
+
+"That's a weight off my mind," he said. "About Michael now. He's been
+suppressed all his life, you know, and instead of being dwarfed he has
+just gone on growing inside. Good Lord! I wish somebody would suppress
+me for a year or two. What a lot there would be when I took the cork out
+again. We dissipate too much, Sylvia, both you and I."
+
+She gave a little grunt, which, from his knowledge of her inarticulate
+expressions, he took to mean dissent.
+
+"I suppose you mean we don't," he remarked.
+
+"Yes. How much one dissipates is determined for one just as is the shape
+of your nose or the colour of your eyes. By the way, I fell madly in
+love with that cousin of Michael's who came with him to-night. He's
+the most attractive creature I ever saw in my life. Of course, he's too
+beautiful: no boy ought to be as beautiful as that."
+
+"You flirted with him," remarked Hermann. "Mike will probably murder him
+on the way home."
+
+Sylvia moved her feet a little farther from the blaze.
+
+"Funny?" she asked.
+
+Instantly Falbe knew that her mind was occupied with exactly the same
+question as his.
+
+"No, not funny at all," he said. "Quite serious. Do you want to talk
+about it or not?"
+
+She gave a little groan.
+
+"No, I don't want to, but I've got to," she said. "Aunt Barbara--we
+became Sylvia and Aunt Barbara an hour or two ago, and she's a
+dear--Aunt Barbara has been talking to me about it already."
+
+"And what did Aunt Barbara say?"
+
+"Just what you are going to," said Sylvia; "namely, that I had better
+make up my mind what I mean to say when Michael says what he means to
+say."
+
+She shifted round so as to face her brother as he stood in front of the
+fire, and pulled his trouser-leg more neatly over the top of his shoe.
+
+"But what's to happen if I can't make up my mind?" she said. "I needn't
+tell you how much I like Michael; I believe I like him as much as I
+possibly can. But I don't know if that is enough. Hermann, is it enough?
+You ought to know. There's no use in you unless you know about me."
+
+She put out her arm, and clasped his two legs in the crook of her
+elbow. That expressed their attitude, what they were to each other, as
+absolutely as any physical demonstration allowed. Had there not been the
+difference of sex which severed them she could never have got the sense
+of support that this physical contact gave her; had there not been her
+sisterhood to chaperon her, so to speak, she could never have been so
+at ease with a man. The two were lover-like, without the physical
+apexes and limitations that physical love must always bring with it.
+The complement of sex that brought them so close annihilated the very
+existence of sex. They loved as only brother and sister can love,
+without trouble.
+
+The closer contact of his fire-warmed trousers to the calf of his leg
+made Hermann step out of her encircling arm without any question of
+hurting her feelings.
+
+"I won't be burned," he said. "Sorry, but I won't be burned. It seems
+to me, Sylvia, that you ought to like Michael a little more and a little
+less."
+
+"It's no use saying what I ought to do," she said. "The idea of what I
+'ought' doesn't come in. I like him just as much as I like him, neither
+more nor less."
+
+He clawed some more cushions together, and sat down on the floor by
+her. She raised herself a little and rested her body against his folded
+knees.
+
+"What's the trouble, Sylvia?" he said.
+
+"Just what I've been trying to tell you."
+
+"Be more concrete, then. You're definite enough when you sing."
+
+She sighed and gave a little melancholy laugh.
+
+"That's just it," she said. "People like you and me, and Michael, too,
+for that matter, are most entirely ourselves when we are at our music.
+When Michael plays for me I can sing my soul at him. While he and I are
+in music, if you understand--and of course you do--we belong to each
+other. Do you know, Hermann, he finds me when I'm singing, without the
+slightest effort, and even you, as you have so often told me, have
+to search and be on the lookout. And then the song is over, and, as
+somebody says, 'When the feast is finished and the lamps expire,'
+then--well, the lamps expire, and he isn't me any longer, but Michael,
+with the--the ugly face, and--oh, isn't it horrible of me--the long arms
+and the little stumpy legs--if only he was rather different in things
+that don't matter, that CAN'T matter! But--but, Hermann, if only Michael
+was rather like you, and you like Michael, I should love you exactly as
+much as ever, and I should love Michael, too."
+
+She was leaning forward, and with both hands was very carefully tying
+and untying one of Hermann's shoelaces.
+
+"Oh, thank goodness there is somebody in the world to whom I can say
+just whatever I feel, and know he understands," she said. "And I know
+this, too--and follow me here, Hermann--I know that all that doesn't
+really matter; I am sure it doesn't. I like Michael far too well to let
+it matter. But there are other things which I don't see my way through,
+and they are much more real--"
+
+She was silent again, so long that Hermann reached out for a cigarette,
+lit it, and threw away the match before she spoke.
+
+"There is Michael's position," she said. "When Michael asks me if I
+will have him, as we both know he is going to do, I shall have to make
+conditions. I won't give up my career. I must go on working--in other
+words, singing--whether I marry him or not. I don't call it singing, in
+my sense of the word, to sing 'The Banks of Allan Water' to Michael
+and his father and mother at Ashbridge, any more than it is being a
+politician to read the morning papers and argue about the Irish question
+with you. To have a career in politics means that you must be a member
+of Parliament--I daresay the House of Lords would do--and make speeches
+and stand the racket. In the same way, to be a singer doesn't mean to
+sing after dinner or to go squawking anyhow in a workhouse, but it means
+to get up on a platform before critical people, and if you don't do your
+very best be damned by them. If I marry Michael I must go on singing
+as a professional singer, and not become an amateur--the Viscountess
+Comber, who sings so charmingly. I refuse to sing charmingly; I will
+either sing properly or not at all. And I couldn't not sing. I shall
+have to continue being Miss Falbe, so to speak."
+
+"You say you insist on it," said Hermann; "but whether you did or not,
+there is nothing more certain than that Michael would."
+
+"I am sure he would. But by so doing he would certainly quarrel
+irrevocably with his people. Even Aunt Barbara, who, after all, is very
+liberally minded, sees that. They can none of them, not even she, who
+are born to a certain tradition imagine that there are other traditions
+quite as stiff-necked. Michael, it is true, was born to one tradition,
+but he has got the other, as he has shown very clearly by refusing to
+disobey it. He will certainly, as you say, insist on my endorsing the
+resolution he has made for himself. What it comes to is this, that I
+can't marry him without his father's complete consent to all that I have
+told you. I can't have my career disregarded, covered up with awkward
+silences, alluded to as a painful subject; and, as I say, even Aunt
+Barbara seemed to take it for granted that if I became Lady Comber I
+should cease to be Miss Falbe. Well, there she's wrong, my dear; I shall
+continue to be Miss Falbe whether I'm Lady Comber, or Lady Ashbridge,
+or the Duchess of anything you please. And--here the difficulty really
+comes in--they must all see how right I am. Difficulty, did I say? It's
+more like an impossibility."
+
+Hermann threw the end of his cigarette into the ashes of the dying fire.
+
+"It's clear, then," he said, "you have made up your mind not to marry
+him."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Oh, Hermann, you fail me," she said. "If I had made up my mind not to I
+shouldn't have kept you up an hour talking about it."
+
+He stretched his hands out towards the embers already coated with grey
+ash.
+
+"Then it's like that with you," he said, pointing. "If there is the fire
+in you, it is covered up with ashes."
+
+She did not reply for a moment.
+
+"I think you've hit it there," she said. "I believe there is the fire;
+when, as I said, he plays for me I know there is. But the ashes? What
+are they? And who shall disperse them for me?"
+
+She stood up swiftly, drawing herself to her full height and stretching
+her arms out.
+
+"There's something bigger than we know coming," she said. "Whether it's
+storm or sunshine I have no idea. But there will be something that shall
+utterly sever Michael and me or utterly unite us."
+
+"Do you care which it is?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, I care," said she.
+
+He held out his hands to her, and she pulled him up to his feet.
+
+"What are you going to say, then, when he asks you?" he said.
+
+"Tell him he must wait."
+
+He went round the room putting out the electric lamps and opening the
+big skylight in the roof. There was a curtain in front of this, which he
+pulled aside, and from the frosty cloudless heavens the starshine of a
+thousand constellations filtered down.
+
+"That's a lot to ask of any man," he said. "If you care, you care."
+
+"And if you were a girl you would know exactly what I mean," she said.
+"They may know they care, but, unless they are marrying for perfectly
+different reasons, they have to feel to the end of their fingers that
+they care before they can say 'Yes.'"
+
+He opened the door for her to pass out, and they walked up the passage
+together arm-in-arm.
+
+"Well, perhaps Michael won't ask you," he said, "in which case all
+bother will be saved, and we shall have sat up talking till--Sylvia, did
+you know it is nearly three--sat up talking for nothing!"
+
+Sylvia considered this.
+
+"Fiddlesticks!" she said.
+
+And Hermann was inclined to agree with her.
+
+
+This view of the case found confirmation next day, for Michael, after
+his music lesson, lingered so firmly and determinedly when the three
+chatted together over the fire that in the end Hermann found nothing
+to do but to leave them together. Sylvia had given him no sign as to
+whether she wished him to absent himself or not, and he concluded,
+since she did not put an end to things by going away herself, that she
+intended Michael to have his say.
+
+The latter rose as the door closed behind Hermann, and came and stood
+in front of her. And at the moment Sylvia could notice nothing of him
+except his heaviness, his plainness, all the things that she had told
+herself before did not really matter. Now her sensation contradicted
+that; she was conscious that the ash somehow had vastly accumulated
+over her fire, that all her affection and regard for him were suddenly
+eclipsed. This was a complete surprise to her; for the moment she found
+Michael's presence and his proximity to her simply distasteful.
+
+"I thought Hermann was never going," he said.
+
+For a second or two she did not reply; it was clearly no use to continue
+the ordinary banter of conversation, to suggest that as the room was
+Hermann's he might conceivably be conceded the right to stop there if he
+chose. There was no transition possible between the affairs of every day
+and the affair for which Michael had stopped to speak. She gave up all
+attempt to make one; instead, she just helped him.
+
+"What is it, Michael?" she asked.
+
+Then to her, at any rate, Michael's face completely changed. There
+burned in it all of a sudden the full glow of that of which she had only
+seen glimpses.
+
+"You know," he said.
+
+His shyness, his awkwardness, had all vanished; the time had come for
+him to offer to her all that he had to offer, and he did it with the
+charm of perfect manliness and simplicity.
+
+"Whether you can accept me or not," he said, "I have just to tell you
+that I am entirely yours. Is there any chance for me, Sylvia?"
+
+He stood quite still, making no movement towards her. She, on her side,
+found all her distaste of him suddenly vanished in the mere solemnity of
+the occasion. His very quietness told her better than any protestations
+could have done of the quality of what he offered, and that quality
+vastly transcended all that she had known or guessed of him.
+
+"I don't know, Michael," she said at length.
+
+She came a step forward, and without any sense of embarrassment
+found that she, without conscious intention, had put her hands on his
+shoulders. The moment that was done she was conscious of the impulse
+that made her do it. It expressed what she felt.
+
+"Yes, I feel like that to you," she said. "You're a dear. I expect you
+know how fond I am of you, and if you don't I assure you of it now. But
+I have got to give you more than that."
+
+Michael looked up at her.
+
+"Yes, Sylvia," he said, "much more than that."
+
+A few minutes ago only she had not liked him at all; now she liked him
+immensely.
+
+"But how, Michael?" she asked. "How can I find it?"
+
+"Oh, it's I who have got to find it for you," he said. "That is to say,
+if you want it to be found. Do you?"
+
+She looked at him gravely, without the tremor of a smile in her eyes.
+
+"What does that mean exactly?" she said.
+
+"It is very simple. Do you want to love me?"
+
+She did not move her hands; they still rested on his shoulders like
+things at ease, like things at home.
+
+"Yes, I suppose I want to," she said.
+
+"And is that the most you can do for me at present?" he asked.
+
+That reached her again; all the time the plain words, the plain face,
+the quiet of him stabbed her with daggers of which he had no idea.
+She was dismayed at the recollection of her talk with her brother the
+evening before, of the ease and certitude with which she had laid down
+her conditions, of not giving up her career, of remaining the famous
+Miss Falbe, of refusing to take a dishonoured place in the sacred
+circle of the Combers. Now, when she was face to face with his love, so
+ineloquently expressed, so radically a part of him, she knew that there
+was nothing in the world, external to him and her, that could enter into
+their reckonings; but into their reckonings there had not entered the
+one thing essential. She gave him sympathy, liking, friendliness, but
+she did not want him with her blood. And though it was not humanly
+possible that she could want him with more than that, it was not
+possible that she could take him with less.
+
+"Yes, that is the most I can do for you at present," she said.
+
+Still quite quietly he moved away from her, so that he stood free of her
+hands.
+
+"I have been constantly here all these last months," he said. "Now that
+you know what I have told you, do you want not to see me?"
+
+That stabbed her again.
+
+"Have I implied that?" she asked.
+
+"Not directly. But I can easily understand its being a bore to you. I
+don't want to bore you. That would be a very stupid way of trying to
+make you care for me. As I said, that is my job. I haven't accomplished
+it as yet. But I mean to. I only ask you for a hint."
+
+She understood her own feeling better than he. She understood at least
+that she was dealing with things that were necessarily incalculable.
+
+"I can't give you a hint," she said. "I can't make any plans about it.
+If you were a woman perhaps you would understand. Love is, or it isn't.
+That is all I know about it."
+
+But Michael persisted.
+
+"I only know what you have taught me," he said. "But you must know
+that."
+
+In a flash she became aware that it would be impossible for her to
+behave to Michael as she had behaved to him for several months past.
+She could not any longer put a hand on his shoulder, beat time with her
+fingers on his arm, knowing that the physical contact meant nothing to
+her, and all--all to him. The rejection of him as a lover rendered the
+sisterly attitude impossible. And not only must she revise her conduct,
+but she must revise the mental attitude of which it was the physical
+counterpart. Up till this moment she had looked at the situation from
+her own side only, had felt that no plans could be made, that the
+natural thing was to go on as before, with the intimacy that she liked
+and the familiarity that was the obvious expression of it. But now she
+began to see the question from his side; she could not go on doing
+that which meant nothing particular to her, if that insouciance meant
+something so very particular to him. She realised that if she had loved
+him the touch of his hand, the proximity of his face would have had
+significance for her, a significance that would have been intolerable
+unless there was something mutual and secret between them. It had seemed
+so easy, in anticipation, to tell him that he must wait, so simple
+for him just--well, just to wait until she could make up her mind. She
+believed, as she had told her brother, that she cared for Michael, or
+as she had told him that she wanted to--the two were to the girl's
+mind identical, though expressed to each in the only terms that were
+possible--but until she came face to face with the picture of the
+future, that to her wore the same outline and colour as the past, she
+had not known the impossibility of such a presentment. The desire of the
+lover on Michael's part rendered unthinkable the sisterly attitude on
+hers. That her instinct told her, but her reason revolted against it.
+
+"Can't we go on as we were, Michael?" she said.
+
+He looked at her incredulously.
+
+"Oh, no, of course not that," he said.
+
+She moved a step towards him.
+
+"I can't think of you in any other way," she said, as if making an
+appeal.
+
+He stood absolutely unresponsive. Something within him longed that she
+should advance a step more, that he should again have the touch of her
+hands on his shoulders, but another instinct stronger than that made him
+revoke his desire, and if she had moved again he would certainly have
+fallen back before her.
+
+"It may seem ridiculous to you," he said, "since you do not care. But I
+can't do that. Does that seem absurd to you I? I am afraid it does; but
+that is because you don't understand. By all means let us be what they
+call excellent friends. But there are certain little things which seem
+nothing to you, and they mean so much to me. I can't explain; it's just
+the brotherly relation which I can't stand. It's no use suggesting that
+we should be as we were before--"
+
+She understood well enough for his purposes.
+
+"I see," she said.
+
+Michael paused for a moment.
+
+"I think I'll be going now," he said. "I am off to Ashbridge in two
+days. Give Hermann my love, and a jolly Christmas to you both. I'll let
+you know when I am back in town."
+
+She had no reply to this; she saw its justice, and acquiesced.
+
+"Good-bye, then," said Michael.
+
+
+He walked home from Chelsea in that utterly blank and unfeeling
+consciousness which almost invariably is the sequel of any event that
+brings with it a change of attitude towards life generally. Not for a
+moment did he tell himself that he had been awakened from a dream, or
+abandon his conviction that his dream was to be made real. The rare,
+quiet determination that had made him give up his stereotyped mode of
+life in the summer and take to music was still completely his, and, if
+anything, it had been reinforced by Sylvia's emphatic statement that
+"she wanted to care." Only her imagining that their old relations could
+go on showed him how far she was from knowing what "to care" meant. At
+first without knowing it, but with a gradually increasing keenness of
+consciousness, he had become aware that this sisterly attitude of hers
+towards him had meant so infinitely much, because he had taken it to be
+the prelude to something more. Now he saw that it was, so to speak, a
+piece complete in itself. It bore no relation to what he had imagined
+it would lead into. No curtain went up when the prelude was over; the
+curtain remained inexorably hanging there, not acknowledging the prelude
+at all. Not for a moment did he accuse her of encouraging him to have
+thought so; she had but given him a frankness of comradeship that meant
+to her exactly what it expressed. But he had thought otherwise; he had
+imagined that it would grow towards a culmination. All that (and here
+was the change that made his mind blank and unfeeling) had to be cut
+away, and with it all the budding branches that his imagination had
+pictured as springing from it. He could not be comrade to her as he was
+to her brother--the inexorable demands of sex forbade it.
+
+He went briskly enough through the clean, dry streets. The frost of last
+night had held throughout the morning, and the sunlight sparkled with
+a rare and seasonable brightness of a traditional Christmas weather.
+Hecatombs of turkeys hung in the poulterers' windows, among sprigs of
+holly, and shops were bright with children's toys. The briskness of
+the day had flushed the colour into the faces of the passengers in the
+street, and the festive air of the imminent holiday was abroad. All this
+Michael noticed with a sense of detachment; what had happened had caused
+a veil to fall between himself and external things; it was as if he was
+sealed into some glass cage, and had no contact with what passed round
+him. This lasted throughout his walk, and when he let himself into his
+flat it was with the same sense of alienation that he found his cousin
+Francis gracefully reclining on the sofa that he had pulled up in front
+of the fire.
+
+Francis was inclined to be querulous.
+
+"I was just wondering whether I should give you up," he said. "The hour
+that you named for lunch was half-past one. And I have almost forgotten
+what your clock sounded like when it struck two."
+
+This also seemed to matter very little.
+
+"Did I ask you to lunch?" he said. "I really quite forgot; I can't even
+remember doing it now."
+
+"But there will be lunch?" asked Francis rather anxiously.
+
+"Of course. It'll be ready in ten minutes."
+
+Michael came and stood in front of the fire, and looked with a sudden
+spasm of envy on the handsome boy who lay there. If he himself had been
+anything like that
+
+--"I was distinctly chippy this morning," remarked Francis, "and so I
+didn't so much mind waiting for lunch. I attribute it to too much beer
+and bacon last night at your friend's house. I enjoyed it--I mean the
+evening, and for that matter the bacon--at the time. It really was
+extremely pleasant."
+
+He yawned largely and openly.
+
+"I had no idea you could frolic like that, Mike," he said. "It was quite
+a new light on your character. How did you learn to do it? It's quite a
+new accomplishment."
+
+Here again the veil was drawn. Was it last night only that Falbe
+had played the Variations, and that they had acted charades? Francis
+proceeded in bland unconsciousness.
+
+"I didn't know Germans could be so jolly," he continued. "As a rule
+I don't like Germans. When they try to be jolly they generally only
+succeed in being top-heavy. But, of course, your friend is half-English.
+Can't he play, too? And to think of your having written those ripping
+tunes. His sister, too--no wonder we haven't seen much of you, Mike, if
+that's where you've been spending your time. She's rather like the new
+girl at the Gaiety, but handsomer. I like big girls, don't you? Oh, I
+forgot, you don't like girls much, anyhow. But are you learning your
+mistake, Mike? You looked last night as if you were getting more
+sensible."
+
+Michael moved away impatiently.
+
+"Oh, shut it, Francis," he observed.
+
+Francis raised himself on his elbow.
+
+"Why, what's up?" he asked. "Won't she turn a favourable eye?"
+
+Michael wheeled round savagely.
+
+"Please remember you are talking about a lady, and not a Gaiety lady,"
+he remarked.
+
+This brought Francis to his feet.
+
+"Sorry," he said. "I was only indulging in badinage until lunch was
+ready."
+
+Michael could not make up his mind to tell his cousin what had happened;
+but he was aware of having spoken more strongly than the situation, as
+Francis knew of it, justified.
+
+"Let's have lunch, then," he said. "We shall be better after lunch, as
+one's nurse used to say. And are you coming to Ashbridge, Francis?"
+
+"Yes; I've been talking to Aunt Bar about it this morning. We're both
+coming; the family is going to rally round you, Mike, and defend you
+from Uncle Robert. There's sure to be some duck shooting, too, isn't
+there?"
+
+This was a considerable relief to Michael.
+
+"Oh, that's ripping," he said. "You and Aunt Barbara always make me feel
+that there's a good deal of amusement to be extracted from the world."
+
+"To be sure there is. Isn't that what the world is for? Lunch and
+amusement, and dinner and amusement. Aunt Bar told me she dined with you
+the other night, and had a quantity of amusement as well as an excellent
+dinner. She hinted--"
+
+"Oh, Aunt Barbara's always hinting," said Michael.
+
+"I know. After all, everything that isn't hints is obvious, and so
+there's nothing to say about it. Tell me more about the Falbes, Mike.
+Will they let me go there again, do you think? Was I popular? Don't tell
+me if I wasn't."
+
+Michael smiled at this egoism that could not help being charming.
+
+"Would you care if you weren't?" he asked.
+
+"Very much. One naturally wants to please delightful people. And I think
+they are both delightful. Especially the girl; but then she starts with
+the tremendous advantage of being--of being a girl. I believe you are in
+love with her, Mike, just as I am. It's that which makes you so grumpy.
+But then you never do fall in love. It's a pity; you miss a lot of jolly
+trouble."
+
+Michael felt a sudden overwhelming desire to make Francis stop this
+maddening twaddle; also the events of the morning were beginning to take
+on an air of reality, and as this grew he felt the need of sympathy of
+some kind. Francis might not be able to give him anything that was
+of any use, but it would do no harm to see if his cousin's buoyant
+unconscious philosophy, which made life so exciting and pleasant a thing
+to him, would in any way help. Besides, he must stop this light banter,
+which was like drawing plaster off a sore and unhealed wound.
+
+"You're quite right," he said. "I am in love with her. Furthermore, I
+asked her to marry me this morning."
+
+This certainly had an effect.
+
+"Good Lord!" said Francis. "And do you mean to say she refused you?"
+
+"She didn't accept me," said Michael. "We--we adjourned."
+
+"But why on earth didn't she take you?" asked Francis.
+
+All Michael's old sensitiveness, his self-consciousness of his
+plainness, his awkwardness, his big hands, his short legs, came back to
+him.
+
+"I should think you could see well enough if you look at me," he said,
+"without my telling you."
+
+"Oh, that silly old rot," said Francis cheerfully. "I thought you had
+forgotten all about it."
+
+"I almost had--in fact I quite had until this morning," said Michael.
+"If I had remembered it I shouldn't have asked her."
+
+He corrected himself.
+
+"No, I don't think that's true," he said. "I should have asked her,
+anyhow; but I should have been prepared for her not to take me. As a
+matter of fact, I wasn't."
+
+Francis turned sideways to the table, throwing one leg over the other.
+
+"That's nonsense," he said. "It doesn't matter whether a man's ugly or
+not."
+
+"It doesn't as long as he is not," remarked Michael grimly.
+
+"It doesn't matter much in any case. We're all ugly compared to girls;
+and why ever they should consent to marry any of us awful hairy things,
+smelling of smoke and drink, is more than I can make out; but, as a
+matter of fact, they do. They don't mind what we look like; what they
+care about is whether we want them. Of course, there are exceptions--"
+
+"You see one," said Michael.
+
+"No, I don't. Good Lord, you've only asked her once. You've got to make
+yourself felt. You're not intending to give up, are you?"
+
+"I couldn't give up."
+
+"Well then, just hold on. She likes you, doesn't she?"
+
+"Certainly," said Michael, without hesitation. "But that's a long way
+from the other thing."
+
+"It's on the same road."
+
+Michael got up.
+
+"It may be," he said, "but it strikes me it's round the corner. You
+can't even see one from the other."
+
+"Possibly not. But you never know how near the corner really is. Go for
+her, Mike, full speed ahead."
+
+"But how?"
+
+"Oh, there are hundreds of ways. I'm not sure that one of the best isn't
+to keep away for a bit. Even if she doesn't want you just now, when
+you are there, she may get to want you when you aren't. I don't think I
+should go on the mournful Byronic plan if I were you; I don't think it
+would suit your style; you're too heavily built to stand leaning against
+the chimney-piece, gazing at her and dishevelling your hair."
+
+Michael could not help laughing.
+
+"Oh, for God's sake, don't make a joke of it," he said.
+
+"Why not? It isn't a tragedy yet. It won't be a tragedy till she marries
+somebody else, or definitely says no. And until a thing is proved to be
+tragic, the best way to deal with it is to treat it like a comedy
+which is going to end well. 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. in memory of Petsy I. But this did not seem
+to account for the wakening up of her mind and emotions into this
+state of depression and anxiety. It was as if all her life she had been
+quietly dozing in the sun, and that the place where she sat had passed
+into the shade, and she had awoke cold and shivering from a bitter
+wind. She had become far more talkative, and though she had by no
+means abandoned her habit of upsetting any conversation by the extreme
+obviousness of her remarks, she asked many more questions, and, as
+Michael noticed, often repeated a question to which she had received an
+answer only a few minutes before. During dinner Michael constantly found
+her looking at him in a shy and eager manner, removing her gaze when she
+found it was observed, and when, later, after a silent cigarette with
+his father in the smoking-room, during which Lord Ashbridge, with some
+ostentation, studied an Army List, Michael went to his bedroom, he was
+utterly astonished, when he gave a "Come in" to a tapping at his door,
+to see his mother enter. Her maid was standing behind her holding the
+inevitable Petsy, and she herself hovered hesitatingly in the doorway.
+
+"I heard you come up, Michael," she said, "and I wondered if it would
+annoy you if I came in to have a little talk with you. But I won't come
+in if it would annoy you. I only thought I should like a little chat
+with you, quietly, secure from interruptions."
+
+Michael instantly got up from the chair in front of his fire, in which
+he had already begun to see images of Sylvia. This intrusion of his
+mother's was a thing utterly unprecedented, and somehow he at once
+connected its innovation with the strange manner he had remarked
+already. But there was complete cordiality in his welcome, and he
+wheeled up a chair for her.
+
+"But by all means come in, mother," he said. "I was not going to bed
+yet."
+
+Lady Ashbridge looked round for her maid.
+
+"And will Petsy not annoy you if he sits quietly on my knee?" she asked.
+
+"Of course not."
+
+Lady Ashbridge took the dog.
+
+"There, that is nice," she said. "I told them to see you had a good fire
+on this cold night. Has it been very cold in London?"
+
+This question had already been asked and answered twice, now for the
+third time Michael admitted the severity of the weather.
+
+"I hope you wrap up well," she said. "I should be sorry if you caught
+cold, and so, I am sure, your father would be. I wish you could make up
+your mind not to vex him any more, but go back into the Guards."
+
+"I'm afraid that's impossible, mother," he said.
+
+"Well, if it's impossible there is no use in saying anything more about
+it. But it vexed him very much. He is still vexed with you. I wish he
+was not vexed. It is a sad thing when father and son fall out. But you
+do wrap up, I hope, in the cold weather?"
+
+Michael felt a sudden pang of anxiety and alarm. Each separate thing
+that his mother said was sensible enough, but in the sum they were
+nonsense.
+
+"You have been in London since September," she went on. "That is a long
+time to be in London. Tell me about your life there. Do you work hard?
+Not too hard, I hope?"
+
+"No! hard enough to keep me busy," he said.
+
+"Tell me about it all. I am afraid I have not been a very good mother to
+you; I have not entered into your life enough. I want to do so now.
+But I don't think you ever wanted to confide in me. It is sad when sons
+don't confide in their mothers. But I daresay it was my fault, and now I
+know so little about you."
+
+She paused a moment, stroking her dog's ears, which twitched under her
+touch.
+
+"I hope you are happy, Michael," she said. "I don't think I am so happy
+as I used to be. But don't tell your father; I feel sure he does not
+notice it, and it would vex him. But I want you to be happy; you used
+not to be when you were little; you were always sensitive and queer. But
+you do seem happier now, and that's a good thing."
+
+Here again this was all sensible, when taken in bits, but its aspect was
+different when considered together. She looked at Michael anxiously a
+moment, and then drew her chair closer to him, laying her thin, veined
+hand, sparkling with many rings, on his knee.
+
+"But it wasn't I who made you happier," she said, "and that's so
+dreadful. I never made anybody happy. Your father always made himself
+happy, and he liked being himself, but I suspect you haven't liked being
+yourself, poor Michael. But now that you're living the life you chose,
+which vexes your father, is it better with you?"
+
+The shyness had gone from the gaze that he had seen her direct at him
+at dinner, which fugitively fluttered away when she saw that it was
+observed, and now that it was bent so unwaveringly on him he saw shining
+through it what he had never seen before, namely, the mother-love
+which he had missed all his life. Now, for the first time, he saw it;
+recognising it, as by divination, when, with ray serene and untroubled,
+it burst through the mists that seemed to hang about his mother's mind.
+Before, noticing her change of manner, her restless questions, he had
+been vaguely alarmed, and as they went on the alarm had become
+more pronounced; but at this moment, when there shone forth the
+mother-instinct which had never come out or blossomed in her life, but
+had been overlaid completely with routine and conventionality, rendering
+it too indolent to put forth petals, Michael had no thought but for that
+which she had never given him yet, and which, now it began to expand
+before him, he knew he had missed all his life.
+
+She took up his big hand that lay on his knee and began timidly stroking
+it.
+
+"Since you have been away," she said, "and since your father has been
+vexed with you, I have begun to see how lonely you must have been. What
+taught me that, I am afraid, was only that I have begun to feel lonely,
+too. Nobody wants me; even Petsy, when she died, didn't want me to be
+near her, and then it began to strike me that perhaps you might want me.
+There was no one else, and who should want me if my son did not? I never
+gave you the chance before, God forgive me, and now perhaps it is too
+late. You have learned to do without me."
+
+That was bitterly true; the truth of it stabbed Michael. On his side,
+as he knew, he had made no effort either, or if he had they had been but
+childish efforts, easily repulsed. He had not troubled about it, and if
+she was to blame, the blame was his also. She had been slow to show the
+mother-instinct, but he had been just as wanting in the tenderness of
+the son.
+
+He was profoundly touched by this humble timidity, by the sincerity,
+vague but unquestionable, that lay behind it.
+
+"It's never too late, is it?" he said, bending down and kissing the thin
+white hands that held his. "We are in time, after all, aren't we?"
+
+She gave a little shiver.
+
+"Oh, don't kiss my hands, Michael," she said. "It hurts me that you
+should do that. But it is sweet of you to say that I am not too late,
+after all. Michael, may I just take you in my arms--may I?"
+
+He half rose.
+
+"Oh, mother, how can you ask?" he said.
+
+"Then let me do it. No, my darling, don't move. Just sit still as you
+are, and let me just get my arms about you, and put my head on your
+shoulder, and hold me close like that for a moment, so that I can
+realise that I am not too late."
+
+She got up, and, leaning over him, held him so for a moment, pressing
+her cheek close to his, and kissing him on the eyes and on the mouth.
+
+"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."
+
+Michael caught at his mother's hand as it stroked his sleeve.
+
+"But she is not sure that she can do with me," he said.
+
+Her face was not dimmed at this.
+
+"Oh, you may be sure she doesn't know her own mind," she said. "Girls so
+often don't. You must not be down-hearted about it. Who is she? Tell me
+about her."
+
+"She's the sister of my great friend, Hermann Falbe," he said, "who
+teaches me music."
+
+This time the gladness faded from her.
+
+"Oh, my dear, it will vex your father again," she said, "that you should
+want to marry the sister of a music-teacher. It will never do to vex him
+again. Is she not a lady?"
+
+Michael laughed.
+
+"But certainly she is," he said. "Her father was German, her mother was
+a Tracy, just as well-born as you or I."
+
+"How odd, then, that her brother should have taken to giving music
+lessons. That does not sound good. Perhaps they are poor, and certainly
+there is no disgrace in being poor. And what is her name?"
+
+"Sylvia," said Michael. "You have probably heard of her; she is the Miss
+Falbe who made such a sensation in London last season by her singing."
+
+The old outlook, the old traditions were beginning to come to the
+surface again in poor Lady Ashbridge's mind.
+
+"Oh, my dear!" she said. "A singer! That would vex your father terribly.
+Fancy the daughter of a Miss Tracy becoming a singer. And yet you want
+her--that seems to me to matter most of all."
+
+Then came a step at the door; it opened an inch or two, and Michael
+heard his father's voice.
+
+"Is your mother with you, Michael?" he asked.
+
+At that Lady Ashbridge got up. For one second she clung to her son, and
+then, disengaging herself, froze up like the sudden congealment of a
+spring.
+
+"Yes, Robert," she said. "I was having a little talk to Michael."
+
+"May I come in?"
+
+"It's our secret," she whispered to Michael.
+
+"Yes, come in, father," he said.
+
+Lord Ashbridge stood towering in the doorway.
+
+"Come, my dear," he said, not unkindly, "it's time for you to go to
+bed."
+
+She had become the mask of herself again.
+
+"Yes, Robert," she said. "I suppose it must be late. I will come. Oh,
+there's Petsy. Will you ring, Michael? then Fedden will come and take
+him to bed. He sleeps with Fedden."
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Michael, in desperate conversational efforts next morning at breakfast,
+mentioned the fact that the German Emperor had engaged him in a
+substantial talk at Munich, and had recommended him to pass the winter
+at Berlin. It was immediately obvious that he rose in his father's
+estimation, for, though no doubt primarily the fact that Michael was
+his son was the cause of this interest, it gave Michael a sort of
+testimonial also to his respectability. If the Emperor had thought
+that his taking up a musical career was indelibly disgraceful--as Lord
+Ashbridge himself had done--he would certainly not have made himself
+so agreeable. On anyone of Lord Ashbridge's essential and deep-rooted
+snobbishness this could not fail to make a certain effect; his chilly
+politeness to Michael sensibly thawed; you might almost have detected
+a certain cordiality in his desire to learn as much as possible of this
+gratifying occurrence.
+
+"And you mean to go to Berlin?" he asked.
+
+"I'm afraid I shan't be able to," said Michael; "my master is in
+London."
+
+"I should be inclined to reconsider that, Michael," said the father.
+"The Emperor knows what he is talking about on the subject of music."
+
+Lady Ashbridge looked up from the breakfast she was giving Petsy II.
+His dietary was rather less rich than that of the defunct, and she was
+afraid sometimes that his food was not nourishing enough.
+
+"I remember the concert we had here," she said. "We had the 'Song to
+Aegir' twice."
+
+Lord Ashbridge gave her a quick glance. Michael felt he would not have
+noticed it the evening before.
+
+"Your memory is very good, my dear," he said with encouragement.
+
+"And then we had a torchlight procession," she remarked.
+
+"Quite so. You remember it perfectly. And about his visit here, Michael.
+Did he talk about that?"
+
+"Yes, very warmly; also about our international relations."
+
+Lord Ashbridge gave a little giggle.
+
+"I must tell Barbara that," he said. "She has become a sort of
+Cassandra, since she became a diplomatist, and sits on her tripod and
+prophesies woe."
+
+"She asked me about it," said Michael. "I don't think she believes in
+his sincerity."
+
+He giggled again.
+
+"That's because I didn't ask her down for his visit," he said.
+
+He rose.
+
+"And what are you going to do, my dear?" he said to his wife.
+
+She looked across to Michael.
+
+"Perhaps Michael will come for a stroll with me," she said.
+
+"No doubt he will. I shall have a round of golf, I think, on this fine
+morning. I should like to have a word with you, Michael, when you've
+finished your breakfast."
+
+The moment he had gone her whole manner changed: it was suffused with
+the glow that had lit her last night.
+
+"And we shall have another talk, dear?" she said. "It was tiresome being
+interrupted last night. But your father was better pleased with you this
+morning."
+
+
+Michael's understanding of the situation grew clearer. Whatever was the
+change in his mother, whatever, perhaps, it portended, it was certainly
+accompanied by two symptoms, the one the late dawning of mother-love for
+himself, the other a certain fear of her husband; for all her married
+life she had been completely dominated by him, and had lived but in a
+twilight of her own; now into that twilight was beginning to steal
+a dread of him. His pleasure or his vexation had begun to affect her
+emotionally, instead of being as before, merely recorded in her mind,
+as she might have recorded an object quite exterior to herself, and seen
+out of the window. Now it was in the room with her. Even as Michael
+left her to speak with him, the consciousness of him rose again in her,
+making her face anxious.
+
+"And you'll try not to vex him, won't you?" she said.
+
+His father was in the smoking-room, standing enormously in front of the
+fire, and for the first time the sense of his colossal fatuity struck
+Michael.
+
+"There are several things I want to tell you about," he said. "Your
+career, first of all. I take it that you have no intention of deferring
+to my wishes on the subject."
+
+"No, father, I am afraid not," said Michael.
+
+"I want you to understand, then, that, though I shall not speak to
+you again about it, my wishes are no less strong than they were. It is
+something to me to know that a man whom I respect so much as the Emperor
+doesn't feel as I do about it, but that doesn't alter my view."
+
+"I understand," said Michael.
+
+"The next is about your mother," he said. "Do you notice any change in
+her?"
+
+"Yes," said Michael.
+
+"Can you describe it at all?"
+
+Michael hesitated.
+
+"She shows quite a new affection for myself," he said. "She came and
+talked to me last night in a way she had never done before."
+
+The irritation which Michael's mere presence produced on his father
+was beginning to make itself felt. The fact that Michael was squat and
+long-armed and ugly had always a side-blow to deal at Lord Ashbridge
+in the reminder that he was his father. He tried to disregard this--he
+tried to bring his mind into an impartial attitude, without seeing for
+a moment the bitter irony of considering impartiality the ideal
+quality when dealing with his son. He tried to be fair, and Michael was
+perfectly conscious of the effort it cost him.
+
+"I had noticed something of the sort," he said. "Your mother was always
+asking after you. You have not been writing very regularly, Michael. We
+know little about your life."
+
+"I have written to my mother every week," said Michael.
+
+The magical effects of the Emperor's interest were dying out. Lord
+Ashbridge became more keenly aware of the disappointment that Michael
+was to him.
+
+"I have not been so fortunate, then," he said.
+
+Michael remembered his mother's anxious face, but he could not let this
+pass.
+
+"No, sir," he said, "but you never answered any of my letters. I thought
+it quite probable that it displeased you to hear from me."
+
+"I should have expressed my displeasure if I had felt it," said his
+father with all the pomposity that was natural to him.
+
+"That had not occurred to me," said Michael. "I am afraid I took your
+silence to mean that my letters didn't interest you."
+
+He paused a moment, and his rebellion against the whole of his father's
+attitude flared up.
+
+"Besides, I had nothing particular to say," he said. "My life is passed
+in the pursuit of which you entirely disapprove."
+
+He felt himself back in boyhood again with this stifling and leaden
+atmosphere of authority and disapproval to breathe. He knew that Francis
+in his place would have done somehow differently; he could almost
+hear Aunt Barbara laughing at the pomposity of the situation that had
+suddenly erected itself monstrously in front of him. The fact that he
+was Michael Comber vexed his father--there was no statement of the case
+so succinctly true.
+
+Lord Ashbridge moved away towards the window, turning his back
+on Michael. Even his back, his homespun Norfolk jacket, his loose
+knickerbockers, his stalwart calves expressed disapproval; but when his
+father spoke again he realised that he had moved away like that, and
+obscured his face for a different reason.
+
+"Have you noticed anything else about your mother?" he asked.
+
+That made Michael understand.
+
+"Yes, father," he said. "I daresay I am wrong about it--"
+
+"Naturally I may not agree with you; but I should like to know what it
+is."
+
+"She's afraid of you," said Michael.
+
+Lord Ashbridge continued looking out of the window a little longer,
+letting his eyes dwell on his own garden and his own fields, where
+towered the leafless elms and the red roofs of the little town which
+had given him his own name, and continued to give him so satisfactory an
+income. There presented itself to his mind his own picture, painted and
+framed and glazed and hung up by himself, the beneficent nobleman, the
+conscientious landlord, the essential vertebra of England's backbone. It
+was really impossible to impute blame to such a fine fellow. He turned
+round into the room again, braced and refreshed, and saw Michael thus.
+
+"It is quite true what you say," he said, with a certain pride in his
+own impartiality. "She has developed an extraordinary timidity towards
+me. I have continually noticed that she is nervous and agitated in my
+presence--I am quite unable to account for it. In fact, there is no
+accounting for it. But I am thinking of going up to London before long,
+and making her see some good doctor. A little tonic, I daresay; though I
+don't suppose she has taken a dozen doses of medicine in as many years.
+I expect she will be glad to go up, for she will be near you. The one
+delusion--for it is no less than that--is as strange as the other."
+
+He drew himself up to his full magnificent height.
+
+"I do not mean that it is not very natural she should be devoted to her
+son," he said with a tremendous air.
+
+What he did mean was therefore uncertain, and again he changed the
+subject.
+
+"There is a third thing," he said. "This concerns you. You are of the
+age when we Combers usually marry. I should wish you to marry, Michael.
+During this last year your mother has asked half a dozen girls down
+here, all of whom she and I consider perfectly suitable, and no doubt
+you have met more in London. I should like to know definitely if you
+have considered the question, and if you have not, I ask you to set
+about it at once."
+
+Michael was suddenly aware that never for a moment had Sylvia been away
+from his mind. Even when his mother was talking to him last night Sylvia
+had sat at the back, in the inmost place, throned and secure. And now
+she stepped forward. Apart from the impossibility of not acknowledging
+her, he wished to do it. He wanted to wear her publicly, though she was
+not his; he wanted to take his allegiance oath, though his sovereign
+heeded not.
+
+"I have considered the question," he said, "and I have quite made up my
+mind whom I want to marry. She is Miss Falbe, Miss Sylvia Falbe, of whom
+you may have heard as a singer. She is the sister of my music-master,
+and I can certainly marry nobody else."
+
+It was not merely defiance of the dreadful old tradition, which Lord
+Ashbridge had announced in the manner of Moses stepping down from Sinai,
+that prompted this appalling statement of the case; it was the joy
+in the profession of his love. It had to be flung out like that. Lord
+Ashbridge looked at him a moment in dead silence.
+
+"I have not the honour of knowing Miss--Miss Falbe, is it?" he said;
+"nor shall I have that honour."
+
+Michael got up; there was that in his father's tone that stung him to
+fury.
+
+"It is very likely that you will not," he said, "since when I proposed
+to her yesterday she did not accept me."
+
+Somehow Lord Ashbridge felt that as an insult to himself. Indeed, it was
+a double insult. Michael had proposed to this singer, and this singer
+had not instantly clutched him. He gave his dreadful little treble
+giggle.
+
+"And I am to bind up your broken heart?" he asked.
+
+Michael drew himself up to his full height. This was an indiscretion,
+for it but made his father recognise how short he was. It brought farce
+into the tragic situation.
+
+"Oh, by no means," he said. "My heart is not going to break yet. I don't
+give up hope."
+
+Then, in a flash, he thought of his mother's pale, anxious face, her
+desire that he should not vex his father.
+
+"I am sorry," he said, "but that is the case. I wish--I wish you would
+try to understand me."
+
+"I find you incomprehensible," said Lord Ashbridge, and left the room
+with his high walk and his swinging elbows.
+
+Well, it was done now, and Michael felt that there were no new vexations
+to be sprung on his father. It was bound to happen, he supposed, sooner
+or later, and he was not sorry that it had happened sooner than he
+expected or intended. Sylvia so held sway in him that he could not help
+acknowledging her. His announcement had broken from him irresistibly,
+in spite of his mother's whispered word to him last night, "This is our
+secret." It could not be secret when his father spoke like that. . . .
+And then, with a flare of illumination he perceived how intensely his
+father disliked him. Nothing but sheer basic antipathy could have been
+responsible for that miserable retort, "Am I to bind up your broken
+heart?" Anger, no doubt, was the immediate cause, but so utterly
+ungenerous a rejoinder to Michael's announcement could not have been
+conceived, except in a heart that thoroughly and rootedly disliked him.
+That he was a continual monument of disappointment to his father he knew
+well, but never before had it been quite plainly shown him how essential
+an object of dislike he was. And the grounds of the dislike were now
+equally plain--his father disliked him exactly because he was his
+father. On the other hand, the last twenty-four hours had shown him that
+his mother loved him exactly because he was her son. When these two new
+and undeniable facts were put side by side, Michael felt that he was an
+infinite gainer.
+
+He went rather drearily to the window. Far off across the field below
+the garden he could see Lord Ashbridge walking airily along on his way
+to the links, with his head held high, his stick swinging in his
+hand, his two retrievers at his heels. No doubt already the soothing
+influences of Nature were at work--Nature, of course, standing for the
+portion of trees and earth and houses that belonged to him--and were
+expunging the depressing reflection that his wife and only son inspired
+in him. And, indeed, such was actually the case: Lord Ashbridge, in his
+amazing fatuity, could not long continue being himself without being
+cheered and invigorated by that fact, and though when he set out his
+big white hands were positively trembling with passion, he carried
+his balsam always with him. But he had registered to himself, even
+as Michael had registered, the fact that he found his son a most
+intolerable person. And what vexed him most of all, what made him clang
+the gate at the end of the field so violently that it hit one of his
+retrievers shrewdly on the nose, was the sense of his own impotence. He
+knew perfectly well that in point of view of determination (that quality
+which in himself was firmness, and in those who opposed him obstinacy)
+Michael was his match. And the annoying thing was that, as his wife had
+once told him, Michael undoubtedly inherited that quality from him. It
+was as inalienable as the estates of which he had threatened to deprive
+his son, and which, as he knew quite well, were absolutely entailed.
+Michael, in this regard, seemed no better than a common but successful
+thief. He had annexed his father's firmness, and at his death would
+certainly annex all his pictures and trees and acres and the red roofs
+of Ashbridge.
+
+Michael saw the gate so imperially slammed, he heard the despairing howl
+of Robin, and though he was sorry for Robin, he could not help laughing.
+He remembered also a ludicrous sight he had seen at the Zoological
+Gardens a few days ago: two seals, sitting bolt upright, quarrelling
+with each other, and making the most absurd grimaces and noises. They
+neither of them quite dared to attack the other, and so sat with their
+faces close together, saying the rudest things. Aunt Barbara would
+certainly have seen how inimitably his father and he had, in their
+interview just now, resembled the two seals.
+
+And then he became aware that all the time, au fond, he had thought
+about nothing but Sylvia, and of Sylvia, not as the subject of quarrel,
+but as just Sylvia, the singing Sylvia, with a hand on his shoulder.
+
+The winter sun was warm on the south terrace of the house, when, an hour
+later, he strolled out, according to arrangement, with his mother. It
+had melted the rime of the night before that lay now on the grass in
+threads of minute diamonds, though below the terrace wall, and on the
+sunk rims of the empty garden beds it still persisted in outline of
+white heraldry. A few monthly roses, weak, pink blossoms, weary with
+the toil of keeping hope alive till the coming of spring, hung dejected
+heads in the sunk garden, where the hornbeam hedge that carried its
+russet leaves unfallen, shaded them from the wind. Here, too, a few
+bulbs had pricked their way above ground, and stood with stout, erect
+horns daintily capped with rime. All these things, which for years
+had been presented to Lady Ashbridge's notice without attracting her
+attention; now filled her with minute childlike pleasure; they were
+discoveries as entrancing and as magical as the first finding of
+the oval pieces of blue sky that a child sees one morning in a
+hedge-sparrow's nest. Now that she was alone with her son, all her
+secret restlessness and anxiety had vanished, and she remarked almost
+with glee that her husband had telephoned from the golf links to say
+that he would not be back for lunch; then, remembering that Michael
+had gone to talk to his father after breakfast, she asked him about the
+interview.
+
+Michael had already made up his mind as to what to say here. Knowing
+that his father was anxious about her, he felt it highly unlikely that
+he would tell her anything to distress her, and so he represented the
+interview as having gone off in perfect amity. Later in the day, on
+his father's return, he had made up his mind to propose a truce between
+them, as far as his mother was concerned. Whether that would be accepted
+or not he could not certainly tell, but in the interval there was
+nothing to be gained by grieving her.
+
+A great weight was lifted off her mind.
+
+"Ah, my dear, that is good," she said. "I was anxious. So now perhaps we
+shall have a peaceful Christmas. I am glad your Aunt Barbara and Francis
+are coming, for though your aunt always laughs at your father, she does
+it kindly, does she not? And as for Francis--my dear, if God had given
+me two sons, I should have liked the other to be like Francis. And shall
+we walk a little farther this way, and see poor Petsy's grave?"
+
+Petsy's grave proved rather agitating. There were doleful little stories
+of the last days to be related, and Petsy II. was tiresome, and insisted
+on defying the world generally with shrill barkings from the top of
+the small mound, conscious perhaps that his helpless predecessor slept
+below. Then their walk brought them to the band of trees that separated
+the links from the house, from which Lady Ashbridge retreated, fearful,
+as she vaguely phrased it, "of being seen," and by whom there was no
+need for her to explain. Then across the field came a group of children
+scampering home from school. They ceased their shouting and their games
+as the others came near, and demurely curtsied and took off their caps
+to Lady Ashbridge.
+
+"Nice, well-behaved children," said she. "A merry Christmas to you all.
+I hope you are all good children to your mothers, as my son is to me."
+
+She pressed his arm, nodded and smiled at the children, and walked on
+with him. And Michael felt the lump in his throat.
+
+The arrival of Aunt Barbara and Francis that afternoon did something, by
+the mere addition of numbers to the party, to relieve the tension of the
+situation. Lord Ashbridge said little but ate largely, and during the
+intervals of empty plates directed an impartial gaze at the portraits of
+his ancestors, while wholly ignoring his descendant. But Michael was too
+wise to put himself into places where he could be pointedly ignored, and
+the resplendent dinner, with its six footmen and its silver service,
+was not really more joyless than usual. But his father's majestic
+displeasure was more apparent when the three men sat alone afterwards,
+and it was in dead silence that port was pushed round and cigarettes
+handed. Francis, it is true, made a couple of efforts to enliven things,
+but his remarks produced no response whatever from his uncle, and he
+subsided into himself, thinking with regret of what an amusing evening
+he would have had if he had only stopped in town. But when they rose
+Michael signed to his cousin to go on, and planted himself firmly in the
+path to the door. It was evident that his father did not mean to speak
+to him, but he could not push by him or walk over him.
+
+"There is one thing I want to say to you, father," said he. "I have told
+my mother that our interview this morning was quite amicable. I do not
+see why she should be distressed by knowing that it was not."
+
+His father's face softened a moment.
+
+"Yes, I agree to that," he said.
+
+
+As far as that went, the compact was observed, and whenever Lady
+Ashbridge was present her husband made a point of addressing a few
+remarks to Michael, but there their intercourse ended. Michael found
+opportunity to explain to Aunt Barbara what had happened, suggesting
+as a consolatory simile the domestic difficulties of the seals at the
+Zoological Gardens, and was pleased to find her recognise the aptness of
+this description. But heaviest of all on the spirits of the whole party
+sat the anxiety about Lady Ashbridge. There could be no doubt that
+some cerebral degeneration was occurring, and Lady Barbara's urgent
+representation to her brother had the effect of making him promise
+to take her up to London without delay after Christmas, and let a
+specialist see her. For the present the pious fraud practised on her
+that Michael and his father had had "a good talk" together, and were
+excellent friends, sufficed to render her happy and cheerful. She
+had long, dim talks, full of repetition, with Michael, whose presence
+appeared to make her completely content, and when he was out or away
+from her she would sit eagerly waiting for his return. Petsy, to the
+great benefit of his health, got somewhat neglected by her; her whole
+nature and instincts were alight with the mother-love that had burnt
+so late into flame, with this tragic accompaniment of derangement. She
+seemed to be groping her way back to the days when Michael was a little
+boy, and she was a young woman; often she would seat herself at her
+piano, if Michael was not there to play to her, and in a thin, quavering
+voice sing the songs of twenty years ago. She would listen to his
+playing, beating time to his music, and most of all she loved the hour
+when the day was drawing in, and the first shadow and flame of dusk and
+firelight; then, with her hand in his, sitting in her room, where
+they would not be interrupted, she would whisper fresh inquiries about
+Sylvia, offering to go herself to the girl and tell her how lovable
+her suitor was. She lived in a dim, subaqueous sort of consciousness,
+physically quite well, and mentally serene in the knowledge that Michael
+was in the house, and would presently come and talk to her.
+
+For the others it was dismal enough; this shadow, that was to her a
+watery sunlight, lay over them all--this, and the further quarrel,
+unknown to her, between Michael and his father. When they all met, as
+at meal times, there was the miserable pretence of friendliness and
+comfortable ease kept up, for fear of distressing Lady Ashbridge. It
+was dreary work for all concerned, but, luckily, not difficult of
+accomplishment. A little chatter about the weather, the merest small
+change of conversation, especially if that conversation was held between
+Michael and his father, was sufficient to wreathe her in smiles, and
+she would, according to habit, break in with some wrecking remark, that
+entailed starting this talk all afresh. But when she left the room a
+glowering silence would fall; Lord Ashbridge would pick up a book or
+leave the room with his high-stepping walk and erect head, the picture
+of insulted dignity.
+
+Of the three he was far most to be pitied, although the situation
+was the direct result of his own arrogance and self-importance; but
+arrogance and self-importance were as essential ingredients of his
+character as was humour of Aunt Barbara's. They were very awkward and
+tiresome qualities, but this particular Lord Ashbridge would have
+no existence without them. He was deeply and mortally offended with
+Michael; that alone was sufficient to make a sultry and stifling
+atmosphere, and in addition to that he had the burden of his anxiety
+about his wife. Here came an extra sting, for in common humanity he had,
+by appearing to be friends with Michael, to secure her serenity, and
+this could only be done by the continued profanation of his own highly
+proper and necessary attitude towards his son. He had to address
+friendly words to Michael that really almost choked him; he had to
+practise cordiality with this wretch who wanted to marry the sister of
+a music-master. Michael had pulled up all the old traditions, that
+carefully-tended and pompous flower-garden, as if they had been weeds,
+and thrown them in his father's face. It was indeed no wonder that, in
+his wife's absence, he almost burst with indignation over the desecrated
+beds. More than that, his own self-esteem was hurt by his wife's fear of
+him, just as if he had been a hard and unkind husband to her, which he
+had not been, but merely a very self-absorbed and dominant one, while
+the one person who could make her quite happy was his despised son.
+Michael's person, Michael's tastes, Michael's whole presence and
+character were repugnant to him, and yet Michael had the power which, to
+do Lord Ashbridge justice, he would have given much to be possessed of
+himself, of bringing comfort and serenity to his wife.
+
+On the afternoon of the day following Christmas the two cousins had been
+across the estuary to Ashbridge together. Francis, who, in spite of his
+habitual easiness of disposition and general good temper, had found the
+conditions of anger and anxiety quite intolerable, had settled to leave
+next day, instead of stopping till the end of the week, and Michael
+acquiesced in this without any sense of desertion; he had really only
+wondered why Francis had stopped three nights, instead of finding urgent
+private business in town after one. He realised also, somewhat with
+surprise, that Francis was "no good" when there was trouble about; there
+was no one so delightful when there was, so to speak, a contest of who
+should enjoy himself the most, and Francis invariably won. But if
+the subject of the contest was changed, and the prize given for the
+individual who, under depressing circumstances, should contrive to show
+the greatest serenity of aspect, Francis would have lost with an even
+greater margin. Michael, in fact, was rather relieved than otherwise
+at his cousin's immediate departure, for it helped nobody to see the
+martyred St. Sebastian, and it was merely odious for St. Sebastian
+himself. In fact, at this moment, when Michael was rowing them back
+across the full-flooded estuary, Francis was explaining this with his
+customary lucidity.
+
+"I don't do any good here, Mike," he said. "Uncle Robert doesn't speak
+to me any more than he does to you, except when Aunt Marion is there.
+And there's nothing going on, is there? I practically asked if I might
+go duck-shooting to-day, and Uncle Robert merely looked out of the
+window. But if anybody, specially you, wanted me to stop, why, of course
+I would."
+
+"But I don't," said Michael.
+
+"Thanks awfully. Gosh, look at those ducks! They're just wanting to be
+shot. But there it is, then. Certainly Uncle Robert doesn't want me, nor
+Aunt Marion. I say, what do they think is the matter with her?"
+
+Michael looked round, then took, rather too late, another pull on his
+oars, and the boat gently grated on the pebbly mud at the side of the
+landing-place. Francis's question, the good-humoured insouciance of it
+grated on his mind in rather similar fashion.
+
+"We don't know yet," he said. "I expect we shall all go back to town in
+a couple of days, so that she may see somebody."
+
+Francis jumped out briskly and gracefully, and stood with his hands in
+his pockets while Michael pushed off again, and brought the boat into
+its shed.
+
+"I do hope it's nothing serious," he said. "She looks quite well,
+doesn't she? I daresay it's nothing; but she's been alone, hasn't she,
+with Uncle Robert all these weeks. That would give her the hump, too."
+
+Michael felt a sudden spasm of impatience at these elegant and consoling
+reflections. But now, in the light of his own increasing maturity, he
+saw how hopeless it was to feel Francis's deficiencies, his entire lack
+of deep feeling. He was made like that; and if you were fond of anybody
+the only possible way of living up to your affection was to attach
+yourself to their qualities.
+
+They strolled a little way in silence.
+
+"And why did you tell Uncle Robert about Sylvia Falbe?" asked Francis.
+"I can't understand that. For the present, anyhow, she had refused you.
+There was nothing to tell him about. If I was fond of a girl like that I
+should say nothing about it, if I knew my people would disapprove, until
+I had got her."
+
+Michael laughed.
+
+"Oh, yes you would," he said, "if you were to use your own words,
+fond of her 'like that.' You couldn't help it. At least, I couldn't.
+It's--it's such a glory to be fond like that."
+
+He stopped.
+
+"We won't talk about it," he said--"or, rather, I can't talk about it,
+if you don't understand."
+
+"But she had refused you," said the sensible Francis.
+
+"That makes no difference. She shines through everything, through the
+infernal awfulness of these days, through my father's anger, and my
+mother's illness, whatever it proves to be--I think about them really
+with all my might, and at the end I find I've been thinking about
+Sylvia. Everything is she--the woods, the tide--oh, I can't explain."
+
+They had walked across the marshy land at the edge of the estuary, and
+now in front of them was the steep and direct path up to the house,
+and the longer way through the woods. At this point the estuary made
+a sudden turn to the left, sweeping directly seawards, and round the
+corner, immediately in front of them was the long reach of deep water
+up which, even when the tide was at its lowest, an ocean-going steamer
+could penetrate if it knew the windings of the channel. To-day, in the
+windless, cold calm of mid-winter, though the sun was brilliant in a
+blue sky overhead, an opaque mist, thick as cotton-wool, lay over the
+surface of the water, and, taking the winding road through the woods,
+which, following the estuary, turned the point, they presently found
+themselves, as they mounted, quite clear of the mist that lay below them
+on the river. Their steps were noiseless on the mossy path, and almost
+immediately after they had turned the corner, as Francis paused to light
+a cigarette, they heard from just below them the creaking of oars in
+their rowlocks. It caught the ears of them both, and without conscious
+curiosity they listened. On the moment the sound of rowing ceased, and
+from the dense mist just below them there came a sound which was quite
+unmistakable, namely, the "plop" of something heavy dropped into the
+water. That sound, by some remote form of association, suddenly recalled
+to Michael's mind certain questions Aunt Barbara had asked him about the
+Emperor's stay at Ashbridge, and his own recollection of his having gone
+up and down the river in a launch. There was something further, which he
+did not immediately recollect. Yes, it was the request that if when he
+was here at Christmas he found strangers hanging about the deep-water
+reach, of which the chart was known only to the Admiralty, he should
+let her know. Here at this moment they were overlooking the mist-swathed
+water, and here at this moment, unseen, was a boat rowing stealthily,
+stopping, and, perhaps, making soundings.
+
+He laid his hand on Francis's arm with a gesture for silence, then,
+invisible below, someone said, "Fifteen fathoms," and again the oars
+creaked audibly in the rowlocks.
+
+Michael took a step towards his cousin, so that he could whisper to him.
+
+"Come back to the boat," he said. "I want to row round and see who that
+is. Wait a moment, though."
+
+The oars below made some half-dozen strokes, and then were still again.
+Once more there came the sound of something heavy dropped into the
+water.
+
+"Someone is making soundings in the channel there," he said. "Come."
+
+They went very quietly till they were round the point, then quickened
+their steps, and Michael spoke.
+
+"That's the uncharted channel," he said; "at least, only the Admiralty
+have the soundings. The water's deep enough right across for a ship
+of moderate draught to come up, but there is a channel up which any
+man-of-war can pass. Of course, it may be an Admiralty boat making fresh
+soundings, but not likely on Boxing Day."
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked Francis, striding easily along by
+Michael's short steps.
+
+"Just see if we can find out who it is. Aunt Barbara asked me about it.
+I'll tell you afterwards. Now the tide's going out we can drop down
+with it, and we shan't be heard. I'll row just enough to keep her head
+straight. Sit in the bow, Francis, and keep a sharp look-out."
+
+Foot by foot they dropped down the river, and soon came into the thick
+mist that lay beyond the point. It was impossible to see more than
+a yard or two ahead, but the same dense obscurity would prevent any
+further range of vision from the other boat, and, if it was still at its
+work, the sound of its oars or of voices, Michael reflected, might guide
+him to it. From the lisp of little wavelets lapping on the shore below
+the woods, he knew he was quite close in to the bank, and close also to
+the place where the invisible boat had been ten minutes before. Then,
+in the bewildering, unlocalised manner in which sound without the
+corrective guidance of sight comes to the ears, he heard as before the
+creaking of invisible oars, somewhere quite close at hand. Next moment
+the dark prow of a rowing-boat suddenly loomed into sight on their
+starboard, and he took a rapid stroke with his right-hand scull to bring
+them up to it. But at the same moment, while yet the occupants of the
+other boat were but shadows in the mist, they saw him, and a quick word
+of command rang out.
+
+"Row--row hard!" it cried, and with a frenzied churning of oars in the
+water, the other boat shot by them, making down the estuary. Next moment
+it had quite vanished in the mist, leaving behind it knots of swirling
+water from its oar-blades.
+
+Michael started in vain pursuit; his craft was heavy and clumsy, and
+from the retreating and faint-growing sound of the other, it was clear
+that he could get no pace to match, still less to overtake them. Soon he
+pantingly desisted.
+
+"But an Admiralty boat wouldn't have run away," he said. "They'd have
+asked us who the devil we were."
+
+"But who else was it?" asked Francis.
+
+Michael mopped his forehead.
+
+"Aunt Barbara would tell you," he said. "She would tell you that they
+were German spies."
+
+Francis laughed.
+
+"Or Timbuctoo niggers," he remarked.
+
+"And that would be an odd thing, too," said Michael.
+
+But at that moment he felt the first chill of the shadow that
+menaced, if by chance Aunt Barbara was right, and if already the clear
+tranquillity of the sky was growing dim as with the mist that lay
+that afternoon on the waters of the deep reach, and covered mysterious
+movements which were going on below it. England and Germany--there was
+so much of his life and his heart there. Music and song, and Sylvia.
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Michael had heard the verdict of the brain specialist, who yesterday had
+seen his mother, and was sitting in his room beside his unopened
+piano quietly assimilating it, and, without making plans of his own
+initiative, contemplating the forms into which the future was beginning
+to fall, mapping itself out below him, outlining itself as when objects
+in a room, as the light of morning steals in, take shape again. And even
+as they take the familiar shapes, so already he felt that he had guessed
+all this in that week down at Ashbridge, from which he had returned with
+his father and mother a couple of days before.
+
+She was suffering, without doubt, from some softening of the brain;
+nothing of remedial nature could possibly be done to arrest or cure the
+progress of the disease, and all that lay in human power was to secure
+for her as much content and serenity as possible. In her present
+condition there was no question of putting her under restraint, nor,
+indeed, could she be certified by any doctor as insane. She would have
+to have a trained attendant, she would live a secluded life, from which
+must be kept as far as possible anything that could agitate or distress
+her, and after that there was nothing more that could be done except
+to wait for the inevitable development of her malady. This might come
+quickly or slowly; there was no means of forecasting that, though the
+rapid deterioration of her brain, which had taken place during those
+last two months, made it, on the whole, likely that the progress of the
+disease would be swift. It was quite possible, on the other hand, that
+it might remain stationary for months. . . . And in answer to a question
+of Michael's, Sir James had looked at him a moment in silence. Then he
+answered.
+
+"Both for her sake and for the sake of all of you," he had said, "one
+hopes that it will be swift."
+
+
+Lord Ashbridge had just telephoned that he was coming round to see
+Michael, a message that considerably astonished him, since it would have
+been more in his manner, in the unlikely event of his wishing to see his
+son, to have summoned him to the house in Curzon Street. However, he had
+announced his advent, and thus, waiting for him, and not much concerning
+himself about that, Michael let the future map itself. Already it was
+sharply defined, its boundaries and limits were clear, and though it was
+yet untravelled it presented to him a familiar aspect, and he felt that
+he could find his allotted road without fail, though he had never yet
+traversed it. It was strongly marked; there could be no difficulty or
+question about it. Indeed, a week ago, when first the recognition of his
+mother's condition, with the symptoms attached to it, was known to him,
+he had seen the signpost that directed him into the future.
+
+Lord Ashbridge made his usual flamboyant entry, prancing and swinging
+his elbows. Whatever happened he would still be Lord Ashbridge, with his
+grey top-hat and his large carnation and his enviable position.
+
+"You will have heard what Sir James's opinion is about your poor
+mother," he said. "It was in consequence of what he recommended when he
+talked over the future with me that I came to see you."
+
+Michael guessed very well what this recommendation was, but with a
+certain stubbornness and sense of what was due to himself, he let his
+father proceed with the not very welcome task of telling him.
+
+"In fact, Michael," he said, "I have a favour to ask of you."
+
+The fact of his being Lord Ashbridge, and the fact of Michael being his
+unsatisfactory son, stiffened him, and he had to qualify the favour.
+
+"Perhaps I should not say I am about to ask you a favour," he corrected
+himself, "but rather to point out to you what is your obvious duty."
+
+Suddenly it struck Michael that his father was not thinking about Lady
+Ashbridge at all, nor about him, but in the main about himself. All
+had to be done from the dominant standpoint; he owed it to himself to
+alleviate the conditions under which his wife must live; he owed it to
+himself that his son should do his part as a Comber. There was no longer
+any possible doubt as to what this favour, or this direction of duty,
+must be, but still Michael chose that his father should state it. He
+pushed a chair forward for him.
+
+"Won't you sit down?" he said.
+
+"Thank you, I would rather stand. Yes; it is not so much a favour as the
+indication of your duty. I do not know if you will see it in the same
+light as I; you have shown me before now that we do not take the same
+view."
+
+Michael felt himself bristling. His father certainly had the effect of
+drawing out in him all the feelings that were better suppressed.
+
+"I think we need not talk of that now, sir," he remarked.
+
+"Certainly it is not the subject of my interview with you now. The fact
+is this. In some way your presence gives a certain serenity and content
+to your mother. I noticed that at Ashbridge, and, indeed, there has been
+some trouble with her this morning because I could not take her to come
+to see you with me. I ask you, therefore, for her sake, to be with us as
+much as you can, in short, to come and live with us."
+
+Michael nodded, saluting, so to speak, the signpost into the future as
+he passed it.
+
+"I had already determined to do that," he said. "I had determined, at
+any rate, to ask your permission to do so. It is clear that my mother
+wants me, and no other consideration can weigh with that."
+
+Lord Ashbridge still remained completely self-sufficient.
+
+"I am glad you take that view of it," he said. "I think that is all I
+have to say."
+
+Now Michael was an adept at giving; as indicated before, when he
+gave, he gave nobly, and he could not only outwardly disregard, but
+he inwardly cancelled the wonderful ungenerosity with which his father
+received. That did not concern him.
+
+"I will make arrangements to come at once," he said, "if you can receive
+me to-day."
+
+"That will hardly be worth while, will it? I am taking your mother back
+to Ashbridge tomorrow."
+
+Michael got up in silence. After all, this gift of himself, of his time,
+of his liberty, of all that constituted life to him, was made not to
+his father, but to his mother. It was made, as his heart knew, not
+ungrudgingly only, but eagerly, and if it had been recommended by
+the doctor that she should go to Ashbridge, he would have entirely
+disregarded the large additional sacrifice on himself which it entailed.
+Thus it was not owing to any retraction of his gift, or reconsideration
+of it, that he demurred.
+
+"I hope you will--will meet me half-way about this, sir," he said. "You
+must remember that all my work lies in London. I want, naturally, to
+continue that as far as I can. If you go to Ashbridge it is completely
+interrupted. My friends are here too; everything I have is here."
+
+His father seemed to swell a little; he appeared to fill the room.
+
+"And all my duties lie at Ashbridge," he said. "As you know, I am not
+of the type of absentee landlords. It is quite impossible that I should
+spend these months in idleness in town. I have never done such a thing
+yet, nor, I may say, would our class hold the position they do if we
+did. We shall come up to town after Easter, should your mother's health
+permit it, but till then I could not dream of neglecting my duties in
+the country."
+
+Now Michael knew perfectly well what his father's duties on that
+excellently managed estate were. They consisted of a bi-weekly interview
+in the "business-room" (an abode of files and stags' heads, in which
+Lord Ashbridge received various reports of building schemes and
+repairs), of a round of golf every afternoon, and of reading the
+lessons and handing the offertory-box on Sunday. That, at least, was
+the sum-total as it presented itself to him, and on which he framed
+his conclusions. But he left out altogether the moral effect of the
+big landlord living on his own land, and being surrounded by his
+own dependents, which his father, on the other hand, so vastly
+over-estimated. It was clear that there was not likely to be much accord
+between them on this subject.
+
+"But could you not go down there perhaps once or twice a week, and get
+Bailey to come and consult you here?" he asked.
+
+Lord Ashbridge held his head very high.
+
+"That would be completely out of the question," he said.
+
+All this, Michael felt, had nothing to do with the problem of his
+mother and himself. It was outside it altogether, and concerned only
+his father's convenience. He was willing to press this point as far as
+possible.
+
+"I had imagined you would stop in London," he said. "Supposing under
+these circumstances I refuse to live with you?"
+
+"I should draw my own conclusion as to the sincerity of your profession
+of duty towards your mother."
+
+"And practically what would you do?" asked Michael.
+
+"Your mother and I would go to Ashbridge tomorrow all the same."
+
+Another alternative suddenly suggested itself to Michael which he was
+almost ashamed of proposing, for it implied that his father put his own
+convenience as outweighing any other consideration. But he saw that if
+only Lord Ashbridge was selfish enough to consent to it, it had manifest
+merits. His mother would be alone with him, free of the presence that so
+disconcerted her.
+
+"I propose, then," he said, "that she and I should remain in town, as
+you want to be at Ashbridge."
+
+He had been almost ashamed of suggesting it, but no such shame was
+reflected in his father's mind. This would relieve him of the perpetual
+embarrassment of his wife's presence, and the perpetual irritation of
+Michael's. He had persuaded himself that he was making a tremendous
+personal sacrifice in proposing that Michael should live with them, and
+this relieved him of the necessity.
+
+"Upon my word, Michael," he said, with the first hint of cordiality that
+he had displayed, "that is very well thought of. Let us consider; it is
+certainly the case that this derangement in your poor mother's mind has
+caused her to take what I might almost call a dislike to me. I mentioned
+that to Sir James, though it was very painful for me to do so, and he
+said that it was a common and most distressing symptom of brain disease,
+that the sufferer often turned against those he loved best. Your plan
+would have the effect of removing that."
+
+He paused a moment, and became even more sublimely fatuous.
+
+"You, too," he said, "it would obviate the interruption of your work,
+about which you feel so keenly. You would be able to go on with it. Of
+myself, I don't think at all. I shall be lonely, no doubt, at Ashbridge,
+but my own personal feelings must not be taken into account. Yes; it
+seems to me a very sensible notion. We shall have to see what your
+mother says to it. She might not like me to be away from her, in spite
+of her apparent--er--dislike of me. It must all depend on her attitude.
+But for my part I think very well of your scheme. Thank you, Michael,
+for suggesting it."
+
+He left immediately after this to ascertain Lady Ashbridge's feelings
+about it, and walked home with a complete resumption of his usual
+exuberance. It indeed seemed an admirable plan. It relieved him from
+the nightmare of his wife's continual presence, and this he expressed
+to himself by thinking that it relieved her from his. It was not that
+he was deficient in sympathy for her, for in his self-centred way he was
+fond of her, but he could sympathise with her just as well at Ashbridge.
+He could do no good to her, and he had not for her that instinct of love
+which would make it impossible for him to leave her. He would also be
+spared the constant irritation of having Michael in the house, and this
+he expressed to himself by saying that Michael disliked him, and would
+be far more at his ease without him. Furthermore, Michael would be able
+to continue his studies . . . of this too, in spite of the fact that he
+had always done his best to discourage them, he made a self-laudatory
+translation, by telling himself that he was very glad not to have
+to cause Michael to discontinue them. In fine, he persuaded himself,
+without any difficulty, that he was a very fine fellow in consenting to
+a plan that suited him so admirably, and only wondered that he had not
+thought of it himself. There was nothing, after his wife had expressed
+her joyful acceptance of it, to detain him in town, and he left for
+Ashbridge that afternoon, while Michael moved into the house in Curzon
+Street.
+
+Michael entered upon his new life without the smallest sense of having
+done anything exceptional or even creditable. It was so perfectly
+obvious to him that he had to be with his mother that he had no
+inclination to regard himself at all in the matter; the thing was
+as simple as it had been to him to help Francis out of financial
+difficulties with a gift of money. There was no effort of will, no
+sense of sacrifice about it, it was merely the assertion of a paramount
+instinct. The life limited his freedom, for, for a great part of the day
+he was with his mother, and between his music and his attendance on her,
+he had but little leisure. Occasionally he went out to see his friends,
+but any prolonged absence on his part always made her uneasy, and he
+would often find her, on his return, sitting in the hall, waiting
+for him, so as to enjoy his presence from the first moment that he
+re-entered the house. But though he found no food for reflection in
+himself, Aunt Barbara, who came to see them some few days after Michael
+had been installed here, found a good deal.
+
+They had all had tea together, and afterwards Lady Ashbridge's nurse had
+come down to fetch her upstairs to rest. And then Aunt Barbara surprised
+Michael, for she came across the room to him, with her kind eyes full of
+tears, and kissed him.
+
+"My dear, I must say it once," she said, "and then you will know that it
+is always in my mind. You have behaved nobly, Michael; it's a big word,
+but I know no other. As for your father--"
+
+Michael interrupted her.
+
+"Oh, I don't understand him," he said. "At least, that's the best way to
+look at it. Let's leave him out."
+
+He paused a moment.
+
+"After all, it is a much better plan than our living all three of us at
+Ashbridge. It's better for my mother, and for me, and for him."
+
+"I know, but how he could consent to the better plan," she said. "Well,
+let us leave him out. Poor Robert! He and his golf. My dear, your father
+is a very ludicrous person, you know. But about you, Michael, do you
+think you can stand it?"
+
+He smiled at her.
+
+"Why, of course I can," he said. "Indeed, I don't think I'll accept that
+statement of it. It's--it's such a score to be able to be of use, you
+know. I can make my mother happy. Nobody else can. I think I'm getting
+rather conceited about it."
+
+"Yes, dear; I find you insufferable," remarked Aunt Barbara
+parenthetically.
+
+"Then you must just bear it. The thing is"--Michael took a moment to
+find the words he searched for--"the thing is I want to be wanted. Well,
+it's no light thing to be wanted by your mother, even if--"
+
+He sat down on the sofa by his aunt.
+
+"Aunt Barbara, how ironically gifts come," he said. "This was rather a
+sinister way of giving, that my mother should want me like this just as
+her brain was failing. And yet that failure doesn't affect the quality
+of her love. Is it something that shines through the poor tattered
+fabric? Anyhow, it has nothing to do with her brain. It is she herself,
+somehow, not anything of hers, that wants me. And you ask if I can stand
+it?"
+
+Michael with his ugly face and his kind eyes and his simple heart seemed
+extraordinarily charming just then to Aunt Barbara. She wished that
+Sylvia could have seen him then in all the unconsciousness of what he
+was doing so unquestioningly, or that she could have seen him as she
+had with his mother during the last hour. Lady Ashbridge had insisted
+on sitting close to him, and holding his hand whenever she could possess
+herself of it, of plying him with a hundred repeated questions, and
+never once had she made Michael either ridiculous or self-conscious. And
+this, she reflected, went on most of the day, and for how many days it
+would go on, none knew. Yet Michael could not consider even whether he
+could stand it; he rejected the expression as meaningless.
+
+"And your friends?" she said. "Do you manage to see them?"
+
+"Oh, yes, occasionally," said Michael. "They don't come here, for the
+presence of strangers makes my mother agitated. She thinks they have
+some design of taking her or me away. But she wants to see Sylvia. She
+knows about--about her and me, and I can't make up my mind what to do
+about it. She is always asking if I can't take her to see Sylvia, or get
+her to come here."
+
+"And why not? Sylvia knows about your mother, I suppose."
+
+"I expect so. I told Hermann. But I am afraid my mother will--well, you
+can't call it arguing--but will try to persuade her to have me. I can't
+let Sylvia in for that. Nor, if it comes to that, can I let myself in
+for that."
+
+"Can't you impress on your mother that she mustn't?"
+
+Michael leaned forward to the fire, pondering this, and stretching out
+his big hands to the blaze.
+
+"Yes, I might," he said. "I should love to see Sylvia again, just
+see her, you know. We settled that the old terms we were on couldn't
+continue. At least, I settled that, and she understood."
+
+"Sylvia is a gaby," remarked Aunt Barbara.
+
+"I'm rather glad you think so."
+
+"Oh, get her to come," said she. "I'm sure your mother will do as you
+tell her. I'll be here too, if you like, if that will do any good. By
+the way, I see your Hermann's piano recital comes off to-morrow."
+
+"I know. My mother wants to go to that, and I think I shall take her.
+Will you come too, Aunt Barbara, and sit on the other side of her? My
+'Variations' are going to be played. If they are a success, Hermann
+tells me I shall be dragged screaming on to the platform, and have to
+bow. Lord! And if they're not, well, 'Lord' also."
+
+"Yes, my dear, of course I'll come. Let me see, I shall have to lie, as
+I have another engagement, but a little thing like that doesn't bother
+me."
+
+Suddenly she clapped her hands together.
+
+"My dear, I quite forgot," she said. "Michael, such excitement. You
+remember the boat you heard taking soundings on the deep-water reach? Of
+course you do! Well, I sent that information to the proper quarter, and
+since then watch has been kept in the woods just above it. Last night
+only the coastguard police caught four men at it--all Germans. They
+tried to escape as they did before, by rowing down the river, but there
+was a steam launch below which intercepted them. They had on them a
+chart of the reach, with soundings, nearly complete; and when they
+searched their houses--they are all tenants of your astute father, who
+merely laughed at us--they found a very decent map of certain private
+areas at Harwich. Oh, I'm not such a fool as I look. They thanked me, my
+dear, for my information, and I very gracefully said that my information
+was chiefly got by you."
+
+"But did those men live in Ashbridge?" asked Michael.
+
+"Yes; and your father will have four decorous houses on his hands. I am
+glad: he should not have laughed at us. It will teach him, I hope. And
+now, my dear, I must go."
+
+She stood up, and put her hand on Michael's arm.
+
+"And you know what I think of you," she said. "To-morrow evening, then.
+I hate music usually; but then I adore Mr. Hermann. I only wish he
+wasn't a German. Can't you get him to naturalise himself and his
+sister?"
+
+"You wouldn't ask that if you had seen him in Munich," said Michael.
+
+"I suppose not. Patriotism is such a degrading emotion when it is not
+English."
+
+
+Michael's "Variations" came some half-way down the programme next
+evening, and as the moment for them approached, Lady Ashbridge got more
+and more excited.
+
+"I hope he knows them by heart properly, dear," she whispered to
+Michael. "I shall be so nervous for fear he'll forget them in the
+middle, which is so liable to happen if you play without your notes."
+
+Michael laid his hand on his mother's.
+
+"Hush, mother," he said, "you mustn't talk while he's playing."
+
+"Well, I was only whispering. But if you tell me I mustn't--"
+
+The hall was crammed from end to end, for not only was Hermann a person
+of innumerable friends, but he had already a considerable reputation,
+and, being a German, all musical England went to hear him. And to-night
+he was playing superbly, after a couple of days of miserable nervousness
+over his debut as a pianist; but his temperament was one of those
+that are strung up to their highest pitch by such nervous agonies; he
+required just that to make him do full justice to his own personality,
+and long before he came to the "Variations," Michael felt quite at ease
+about his success. There was no question about it any more: the
+whole audience knew that they were listening to a master. In the row
+immediately behind Michael's party were sitting Sylvia and her mother,
+who had not quite been torn away from her novels, since she had sought
+"The Love of Hermione Hogarth" underneath her cloak, and read it
+furtively in pauses. They had come in after Michael, and until the
+interval between the classical and the modern section of the concert he
+was unaware of their presence; then idly turning round to look at the
+crowded hall, he found himself face to face with the girl.
+
+"I had no idea you were there," he said. "Hermann will do, won't he? I
+think--"
+
+And then suddenly the words of commonplace failed him, and he looked at
+her in silence.
+
+"I knew you were back," she said. "Hermann told me about--everything."
+
+Michael glanced sideways, indicating his mother, who sat next him, and
+was talking to Barbara.
+
+"I wondered whether perhaps you would come and see my mother and me," he
+said. "May I write?"
+
+She looked at him with the friendliness of her smiling eyes and her
+grave mouth.
+
+"Is it necessary to ask?" she said.
+
+Michael turned back to his seat, for his mother had had quite enough of
+her sister-in-law, and wanted him again. She looked over her shoulder
+for a moment to see whom Michael was talking to.
+
+"I'm enjoying my concert, dear," she said. "And who is that nice young
+lady? Is she a friend of yours?"
+
+The interval was over, and Hermann returned to the platform, and waiting
+for a moment for the buzz of conversation to die down, gave out,
+without any preliminary excursion on the keys, the text of Michael's
+"Variations." Then he began to tell them, with light and flying fingers,
+what that simple tune had suggested to Michael, how he imagined himself
+looking on at an old-fashioned dance, and while the dancers moved to
+the graceful measure of a minuet, or daintily in a gavotte, the tune of
+"Good King Wenceslas" still rang in his head, or, how in the joy of
+the sunlight of a spring morning it still haunted him. It lay behind
+a cascade of foaming waters that, leaping, roared into a ravine; it
+marched with flying banners on some day of victorious entry, it watched
+a funeral procession wind by, with tapers and the smell of incense; it
+heard, as it got nearer back to itself again, the peals of Christmas
+bells, and stood forth again in its own person, decorated and
+emblazoned.
+
+Hermann had already captured his audience; now he held them tame in the
+hollow of his hand. Twice he bowed, and then, in answer to the demand,
+just beckoned with his finger to Michael, who rose. For a moment his
+mother wished to detain him.
+
+"You're not going to leave me, my dear, are you?" she asked anxiously.
+
+He waited to explain to her quietly, left her, and, feeling rather
+dazed, made his way round to the back and saw the open door on to the
+platform confronting him. He felt that no power on earth could make him
+step into the naked publicity there, but at the moment Hermann appeared
+in the doorway.
+
+"Come on, Mike," he said, laughing. "Thank the pretty ladies and
+gentlemen! Lord, isn't it all a lark!"
+
+Michael advanced with him, stared and hoped he smiled properly, though
+he felt that he was nailing some hideous grimace to his face; and then
+just below him he saw his mother eagerly pointing him out to a total
+stranger, with gesticulation, and just behind her Sylvia looking at her,
+and not at him, with such tenderness, such kindly pity. There were the
+two most intimately bound into his life, the mother who wanted him, the
+girl whom he wanted; and by his side was Hermann, who, as Michael always
+knew, had thrown open the gates of life to him. All the rest, even
+including Aunt Barbara, seemed of no significance in that moment.
+Afterwards, no doubt, he would be glad they were pleased, be proud of
+having pleased them; but just now, even when, for the first time in his
+life, that intoxicating wine of appreciation was given him, he stood
+with it bubbling and yellow in his hand, not drinking of it.
+
+
+Michael had prepared the way of Sylvia's coming by telling his mother
+the identity of the "nice young lady" at the concert; he had also
+impressed on her the paramount importance of not saying anything with
+regard to him that could possibly embarrass the nice young lady, and
+when Sylvia came to tea a few days later, he was quite without any
+uneasiness, while for himself he was only conscious of that thirst for
+her physical presence, the desire, as he had said to Aunt Barbara, "just
+to see her." Nor was there the slightest embarrassment in their meeting!
+it was clear that there was not the least difficulty either for him
+or her in being natural, which, as usually happens, was the complete
+solution.
+
+"That is good of you to come," he said, meeting her almost at the door.
+"My mother has been looking forward to your visit. Mother dear, here is
+Miss Falbe."
+
+Lady Ashbridge was pathetically eager to be what she called "good."
+Michael had made it clear to her that it was his wish that Miss Falbe
+should not be embarrassed, and any wish just now expressed by Michael
+was of the nature of a divine command to her.
+
+"Well, this is a pleasure," she said, looking across to Michael with the
+eyes of a dog on a beloved master. "And we are not strangers quite, are
+we, Miss Falbe? We sat so near each other to listen to your brother, who
+I am sure plays beautifully, and the music which Michael made. Haven't I
+got a clever son, and such a good one?"
+
+Sylvia was unerring. Michael had known she would be.
+
+"Indeed, you have," she said, sitting down by her. "And Michael mustn't
+hear what we say about him, must he, or he'll be getting conceited."
+
+Lady Ashbridge laughed.
+
+"And that would never do, would it?" she said, still retaining Sylvia's
+hand. Then a little dim ripple of compunction broke in her mind.
+"Michael," she said, "we are only joking about your getting conceited.
+Miss Falbe and I are only joking. And--and won't you take off your hat,
+Miss Falbe, for you are not going to hurry away, are you? You are going
+to pay us a long visit."
+
+Michael had not time to remind his mother that ladies who come to tea
+do not usually take their hats off, for on the word Sylvia's hands were
+busy with her hatpins.
+
+"I'm so glad you suggested that," she said. "I always want to take my
+hat off. I don't know who invented hats, but I wish he hadn't."
+
+Lady Ashbridge looked at her masses of bright hair, and could not help
+telegraphing a note of admiration, as it were, to Michael.
+
+"Now, that's more comfortable," she said. "You look as if you weren't
+going away next minute. When I like to see people, I hate their going
+away. I'm afraid sometimes that Michael will go away, but he tells me he
+won't. And you liked Michael's music, Miss Falbe? Was it not clever of
+him to think of all that out of one simple little tune? And he tells me
+you sing so nicely. Perhaps you would sing to us when we've had tea. Oh,
+and here is my sister-in-law. Do you know her--Lady Barbara? My dear,
+what is your husband's name?"
+
+Seeing Sylvia uncovered, Lady Barbara, with a tact that was creditable
+to her, but strangely unsuccessful, also began taking off her hat. Her
+sister-in-law was too polite to interfere, but, as a matter of fact, she
+did not take much pleasure in the notion that Barbara was going to stay
+a very long time, too. She was fond of her, but it was not Barbara whom
+Michael wanted. She turned her attention to the girl again.
+
+"My husband's away," she said, confidentially; "he is very busy down at
+Ashbridge, and I daresay he won't find time to come up to town for many
+weeks yet. But, you know, Michael and I do very well without him,
+very well, indeed, and it would never do to take him away from his
+duties--would it, Michael?"
+
+Here was a shoal to be avoided.
+
+"No, you mustn't think of tempting him to come up to town," said
+Michael. "Give me some tea for Aunt Barbara."
+
+This answer entranced Lady Ashbridge; she had to nudge Michael several
+times to show that she understood the brilliance of it, and put lump
+after lump of sugar into Barbara's cup in her rapt appreciation of it.
+But very soon she turned to Sylvia again.
+
+"And your brother is a friend of Michael's, too, isn't he?" she said.
+"Some day perhaps he will come to see me. We don't see many people,
+Michael and I, for we find ourselves very well content alone. But
+perhaps some day he will come and play his concert over again to us; and
+then, perhaps, if you ask me, I will sing to you. I used to sing a great
+deal when I was younger. Michael--where has Michael gone?"
+
+Michael had just left the room to bring some cigarettes in from next
+door, and Lady Ashbridge ran after him, calling him. She found him in
+the hall, and brought him back triumphantly.
+
+"Now we will all sit and talk for a long time," she said. "You one side
+of me, Miss Falbe, and Michael the other. Or would you be so kind as to
+sing for us? Michael will play for you, and would it annoy you if I came
+and turned over the pages? It would give me a great deal of pleasure to
+turn over for you, if you will just nod each time when you are ready."
+
+Sylvia got up.
+
+"Why, of course," she said. "What have you got, Michael? I haven't
+anything with me."
+
+Michael found a volume of Schubert, and once again, as on the first time
+he had seen her, she sang "Who is Sylvia?" while he played, and Lady
+Ashbridge had her eyes fixed now on one and now on the other of them,
+waiting for their nod to do her part; and then she wanted to sing
+herself, and with some far-off remembrance of the airs and graces of
+twenty-five years ago, she put her handkerchief and her rings on the
+top of the piano, and, playing for herself, emitted faint treble sounds
+which they knew to be "The Soldier's Farewell."
+
+Then presently her nurse came for her to lie down before dinner, and she
+was inclined to be tearful and refuse to go till Michael made it clear
+that it was his express and sovereign will that she should do so. Then
+very audibly she whispered to him. "May I ask her to give me a kiss?"
+she said. "She looks so kind, Michael, I don't think she would mind."
+
+
+Sylvia went back home with a little heartache for Michael, wondering,
+if she was in his place, if her mother, instead of being absorbed in her
+novels, demanded such incessant attentions, whether she had sufficient
+love in her heart to render them with the exquisite simplicity, the
+tender patience that Michael showed. Well as she knew him, greatly as
+she liked him, she had not imagined that he, or indeed any man could
+have behaved quite like that. There seemed no effort at all about it;
+he was not trying to be patient; he had the sense of "patience's perfect
+work" natural to him; he did not seem to have to remind himself that his
+mother was ill, and thus he must be gentle with her. He was gentle with
+her because he was in himself gentle. And yet, though his behaviour was
+no effort to him, she guessed how wearying must be the continual strain
+of the situation itself. She felt that she would get cross from mere
+fatigue, however excellent her intentions might be, however willing
+the spirit. And no one, so she had understood from Barbara, could take
+Michael's place. In his occasional absences his mother was fretful and
+miserable, and day by day Michael left her less. She would sit close to
+him when he was practising--a thing that to her or to Hermann would have
+rendered practice impossible--and if he wrestled with one hand over a
+difficult bar, she would take the other into hers, would ask him if he
+was not getting tired, would recommend him to rest for a little; and yet
+Michael, who last summer had so stubbornly insisted on leading his own
+life, and had put his determination into effect in the teeth of all
+domestic opposition, now with more than cheerfulness laid his own life
+aside in order to look after his mother. Sylvia felt that the real
+heroisms of life were not so much the fine heady deeds which are so
+obviously admirable, as such serene steadfastness, such unvarying
+patience as that which she had just seen.
+
+Her whole soul applauded Michael, and yet below her applause was this
+heartache for him, the desire to be able to help him to bear the burden
+which must be so heavy, though he bore it so blithely. But in the very
+nature of things there was but one way in which she could help him, and
+in that she was powerless. She could not give him what he wanted. But
+she longed to be able to.
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+It was a morning of early March, and Michael, looking out from the
+dining-room window at the house in Curzon Street, where he had just
+breakfasted alone, was smitten with wonder and a secret ecstasy, for he
+suddenly saw and felt that it was winter no longer, but that spring had
+come. For the last week the skies had screamed with outrageous winds
+and had been populous with flocks of sullen clouds that discharged
+themselves in sleet and snowy rain, and half last night, for he had
+slept very badly, he had heard the dashing of showers, as of wind-driven
+spray, against the window-panes, and had listened to the fierce rattling
+of the frames. Towards morning he had slept, and during those hours it
+seemed that a new heaven and a new earth had come into being; vitally
+and essentially the world was a different affair altogether.
+
+At the back of the house on to which these windows looked was a garden
+of some half acre, a square of somewhat sooty grass, bounded by high
+walls, with a few trees at the further end. Into it, too, had the
+message that thrilled through his bones penetrated, and this little
+oasis of doubtful grass and blackened shrubs had a totally different
+aspect to-day from that which it had worn all those weeks. The sparrows
+that had sat with fluffed-up feathers in corners sheltered from the
+gales, were suddenly busy and shrilly vocal, chirruping and dragging
+about straws, and flying from limb to limb of the trees with twigs in
+their beaks. For the first time he noticed that little verdant cabochons
+of folded leaf had globed themselves on the lilac bushes below the
+window, crocuses had budded, and in the garden beds had shot up the
+pushing spikes of bulbs, while in the sooty grass he could see specks
+and patches of vivid green, the first growth of the year.
+
+He opened the window and strolled out. The whole taste and savour of the
+air was changed, and borne on the primrose-coloured sunshine came the
+smell of damp earth, no longer dead and reeking of the decay of autumn,
+but redolent with some new element, something fertile and fecund,
+something daintily, indefinably laden with the secret of life and
+restoration. The grey, lumpy clouds were gone, and instead chariots of
+dazzling white bowled along the infinite blue expanse, harnessed to the
+southwest wind. But, above all, the sparrows dragged straws to and fro,
+loudly chirruping. All spring was indexed there.
+
+For a moment Michael was entranced with the exquisite moment, and stood
+sunning his soul in spring. But then he felt the fetters of his own
+individual winter heavy on him again, and he could only see what was
+happening without feeling it. For that moment he had felt the leap in
+his blood, but the next he was conscious again of the immense
+fatigue that for weeks had been growing on him. The task which he had
+voluntarily taken on himself had become no lighter with habit, the
+incessant attendance on his mother and the strain of it got heavier day
+by day. For some time now her childlike content in his presence had
+been clouded and, instead, she was constantly depressed and constantly
+querulous with him, finding fault with his words and his silences, and
+in her confused and muffled manner blaming him and affixing sinister
+motives to his most innocent actions. But she was still entirely
+dependent on him, and if he left her for an hour or two, she would wait
+in an agony of anxiety for his return, and when he came back overwhelmed
+him with tearful caresses and the exaction of promises not to go away
+again. Then, feeling certain of him once more, she would start again on
+complaints and reproaches. Her doctor had warned him that it looked
+as if some new phase of her illness was approaching, which might
+necessitate the complete curtailment of her liberty; but day had
+succeeded to day and she still remained in the same condition, neither
+better nor worse, but making every moment a burden to Michael.
+
+It had been necessary that Sylvia should discontinue her visits, for
+some weeks ago Lady Ashbridge had suddenly taken a dislike to her, and,
+when she came, would sit in silent and lofty displeasure, speaking to
+her as little as possible, and treating her with a chilling and awful
+politeness. Michael had enough influence with his mother to prevent her
+telling the girl what her crime had been, which was her refusal to
+marry him; but, when he was alone with his mother, he had to listen to
+torrents of these complaints. Lady Ashbridge, with a wealth of language
+that had lain dormant in her all her life, sarcastically supposed that
+Miss Falbe was a princess in disguise ("very impenetrable disguise, for
+I'm sure she reminds me of a barmaid more than a princess"), and thought
+that such a marriage would be beneath her. Or, another time, she hinted
+that Miss Falbe might be already married; indeed, this seemed a very
+plausible explanation of her attitude. She desired, in fact, that Sylvia
+should not come to see her any more, and now, when she did not, there
+was scarcely a day in which Lady Ashbridge would not talk in a pointed
+manner about pretended friends who leave you alone, and won't even take
+the trouble to take a two-penny 'bus (if they are so poor as all that)
+to come from Chelsea to Curzon Street.
+
+Michael knew that his mother's steps were getting nearer and nearer to
+that border line which separates the sane from the insane, and with all
+the wearing strain of the days as they passed, had but the one desire
+in his heart, namely, to keep her on the right side for as long as was
+humanly possible. But something might happen, some new symptom develop
+which would make it impossible for her to go on living with him as she
+did now, and the dread of that moment haunted his waking hours and his
+dreams. Two months ago her doctor had told him that, for the sake of
+everyone concerned, it was to be hoped that the progress of her disease
+would be swift; but, for his part, Michael passionately disclaimed such
+a wish. In spite of her constant complaints and strictures, she was
+still possessed of her love for him, and, wearing though every day was,
+he grudged the passing of the hours that brought her nearer to the awful
+boundary line. Had a deed been presented to him for his signature, which
+bound him indefinitely to his mother's service, on the condition that
+she got no worse, his pen would have spluttered with his eagerness to
+sign.
+
+In consequence of his mother's dislike to Sylvia, Michael had hardly
+seen her during this last month. Once, when owing to some small physical
+disturbance, Lady Ashbridge had gone to bed early on a Sunday evening,
+he had gone to one of the Falbes' weekly parties, and had tried to fling
+himself with enjoyment into the friendly welcoming atmosphere. But for
+the present, he felt himself detached from it all, for this life with
+his mother was close round him with a sort of nightmare obsession,
+through which outside influence and desire could only faintly trickle.
+He knew that the other life was there, he knew that in his heart he
+longed for Sylvia as much as ever; but, in his present detachment, his
+desire for her was a drowsy ache, a remote emptiness, and the veil that
+lay over his mother seemed to lie over him also. Once, indeed, during
+the evening, when he had played for her, the veil had lifted and for the
+drowsy ache he had the sunlit, stabbing pang; but, as he left, the veil
+dropped again, and he let himself into the big, mute house, sorry that
+he had left it. In the same way, too, his music was in abeyance: he
+could not concentrate himself or find it worth while to make the effort
+to absorb himself in it, and he knew that short of that, there was
+neither profit nor pleasure for him in his piano. Everything seemed
+remote compared with the immediate foreground: there was a gap, a gulf
+between it and all the rest of the world.
+
+His father wrote to him from time to time, laying stress on the extreme
+importance of all he was doing in the country, and giving no hint of his
+coming up to town at present. But he faintly adumbrated the time when
+in the natural course of events he would have to attend to his national
+duties in the House of Lords, and wondered whether it would not (about
+then) be good for his wife to have a change, and enjoy the country
+when the weather became more propitious. Michael, with an excusable
+unfilialness, did not answer these amazing epistles; but, having basked
+in their unconscious humour, sent them on to Aunt Barbara. Weekly
+reports were sent by Lady Ashbridge's nurse to his father, and Michael
+had nothing whatever to add to these. His fear of him had given place
+to a quiet contempt, which he did not care to think about, and certainly
+did not care to express.
+
+Every now and then Lady Ashbridge had what Michael thought of as a good
+hour or two, when she went back to her content and childlike joy in his
+presence, and it was clear, when presently she came downstairs as he
+still lingered in the garden, reading the daily paper in the sun, that
+one of these better intervals had visited her. She, too, it appeared,
+felt the waving of the magic wand of spring, and she noted the signs of
+it with a joy that was infinitely pathetic.
+
+"My dear," she said, "what a beautiful morning! Is it wise to sit out
+of doors without your hat, Michael? Shall not I go and fetch it for you?
+No? Then let us sit here and talk. It is spring, is it not? Look how the
+birds are collecting twigs for their nests! I wonder how they know that
+the time has come round again. Sweet little birds! How bold and merry
+they are."
+
+She edged her way a little nearer him, so that her shoulder leaned on
+his arm.
+
+"My dear, I wish you were going to nest, too," she said. "I wonder--do
+you think I have been ill-natured and unkind to your Sylvia, and that
+makes her not come to see me now? I do remember being vexed at her for
+not wanting to marry you, and perhaps I talked unkindly about her. I am
+sorry, for my being cross to her will do no good; it will only make
+her more unwilling than ever to marry a man who has such an unpleasant
+mamma. Will she come to see me again, do you think, if I ask her?"
+
+These good hours were too rare in their appearances and swift in their
+vanishings to warrant the certainty that she would feel the same this
+afternoon, and Michael tried to turn the subject.
+
+"Ah, we shall have to think about that, mother," he said. "Look, there
+is a quarrel going on between those two sparrows. They both want the
+same straw."
+
+She followed his pointing finger, easily diverted.
+
+"Oh, I wish they would not quarrel," she said. "It is so sad and stupid
+to quarrel, instead of being agreeable and pleasant. I do not like them
+to do that. There, one has flown away! And see, the crocuses are coming
+up. Indeed it is spring. I should like to see the country to-day. If you
+are not busy, Michael, would you take me out into the country? We might
+go to Richmond Park perhaps, for that is in the opposite direction from
+Ashbridge, and look at the deer and the budding trees. Oh, Michael,
+might we take lunch with us, and eat it out of doors? I want to enjoy as
+much as I can of this spring day."
+
+She clung closer to Michael.
+
+"Everything seems so fragile, dear," she whispered. "Everything may
+break. . . . Sometimes I am frightened."
+
+The little expedition was soon moving, after a slight altercation
+between Lady Ashbridge and her nurse, whom she wished to leave behind
+in order to enjoy Michael's undiluted society. But Miss Baker, who had
+already spoken to Michael, telling him she was not quite happy in her
+mind about her patient, was firm about accompanying them, though she
+obligingly effaced herself as far as possible by taking the box-seat by
+the chauffeur as they drove down, and when they arrived, and Michael
+and his mother strolled about in the warm sunshine before lunch, keeping
+carefully in the background, just ready to come if she was wanted. But
+indeed it seemed as if no such precautions were necessary, for never had
+Lady Ashbridge been more amenable, more blissfully content in her son's
+companionship. The vernal hour, that first smell of the rejuvenated
+earth, as it stirred and awoke from its winter sleep had reached her
+no less than it had reached the springing grass and the heart of buried
+bulbs, and never perhaps in all her life had she been happier than on
+that balmy morning of early March. Here the stir of spring that had
+crept across miles of smoky houses to the gardens behind Curzon Street,
+was more actively effervescent, and the "bare, leafless choirs" of the
+trees, which had been empty of song all winter, were once more resonant
+with feathered worshippers. Through the tussocks of the grey grass of
+last year were pricking the vivid shoots of green, and over the grove
+of young birches and hazel the dim, purple veil of spring hung mistlike.
+Down by the water-edge of the Penn ponds they strayed, where moor-hens
+scuttled out of rhododendron bushes that overhung the lake, and hurried
+across the surface of the water, half swimming, half flying, for the
+shelter of some securer retreat. There, too, they found a plantation of
+willows, already in bud with soft moleskin buttons, and a tortoiseshell
+butterfly, evoked by the sun from its hibernation, settled on one of the
+twigs, opening and shutting its diapered wings, and spreading them to
+the warmth to thaw out the stiffness and inaction of winter. Blackbirds
+fluted in the busy thickets, a lark shot up near them soaring and
+singing till it became invisible in the luminous air, a suspended
+carol in the blue, and bold male chaffinches, seeking their mates with
+twittered songs, fluttered with burr of throbbing wings. All the promise
+of spring was there--dim, fragile, but sure, on this day of days,
+this pearl that emerged from the darkness and the stress of winter,
+iridescent with the tender colours of the dawning year.
+
+They lunched in the open motor, Miss Baker again obligingly removing
+herself to the box seat, and spreading rugs on the grass sat in the
+sunshine, while Lady Ashbridge talked or silently watched Michael as he
+smoked, but always with a smile. The one little note of sadness which
+she had sounded when she said she was frightened lest everything should
+break, had not rung again, and yet all day Michael heard it echoing
+somewhere dimly behind the song of the wind and the birds, and the
+shoots of growing trees. It lurked in the thickets, just eluding him,
+and not presenting itself to his direct gaze; but he felt that he saw it
+out of the corner of his eye, only to lose it when he looked at it. And
+yet for weeks his mother had never seemed so well: the cloud had lifted
+off her this morning, and, but for some vague presage of trouble that
+somehow haunted his mind, refusing to be disentangled, he could have
+believed that, after all, medical opinion might be at fault, and that,
+instead of her passing more deeply into the shadows as he had been
+warned was inevitable, she might at least maintain the level to which
+she had returned to-day. All day she had been as she was before the
+darkness and discontent of those last weeks had come upon her: he
+who knew her now so well could certainly have affirmed that she had
+recovered the serenity of a month ago. It was so much, so tremendously
+much that she should do this, and if only she could remain as she had
+been all day, she would at any rate be happy, happier, perhaps, than she
+had consciously been in all the stifled years which had preceded this.
+Nothing else at the moment seemed to matter except the preservation to
+her of such content, and how eagerly would he have given all the service
+that his young manhood had to offer, if by that he could keep her
+from going further into the bewildering darkness that he had been told
+awaited her.
+
+There was some little trouble, though no more than the shadow of a
+passing cloud, when at last he said that they must be getting back to
+town, for the afternoon was beginning to wane. She besought him for five
+minutes more of sitting here in the sunshine that was still warm, and
+when those minutes were over, she begged for yet another postponement.
+But then the quiet imposition of his will suddenly conquered her, and
+she got up.
+
+"My dear, you shall do what you like with me," she said, "for you have
+given me such a happy day. Will you remember that, Michael? It has been
+a nice day. And might we, do you think, ask Miss Falbe to come to tea
+with us when we get back? She can but say 'no,' and if she comes, I will
+be very good and not vex her."
+
+As she got back into the motor she stood up for a moment, her vague blue
+eyes scanning the sky, the trees, the stretch of sunlit park.
+
+"Good-bye, lake, happy lake and moor-hens," she said. "Good-bye, trees
+and grass that are growing green again. Good-bye, all pretty, peaceful
+things."
+
+
+Michael had no hesitation in telephoning to Sylvia when they got back to
+town, asking her if she could come and have tea with his mother, for the
+gentle, affectionate mood of the morning still lasted, and her eagerness
+to see Sylvia was only equalled by her eagerness to be agreeable to her.
+He was greedy, whenever it could be done, to secure a pleasure for his
+mother, and this one seemed in her present mood a perfectly safe one.
+Added to that impulse, in itself sufficient, there was his own longing
+to see her again, that thirst that never left him, and soon after they
+had got back to Curzon Street Sylvia was with them, and, as before,
+in preparation for a long visit, she had taken off her hat. To-day she
+divested herself of it without any suggestion on Lady Ashbridge's part,
+and this immensely pleased her.
+
+"Look, Michael," she said. "Miss Falbe means to stop a long time. That
+is sweet of her, is it not? She is not in such a hurry to get away
+today. Sugar, Miss Falbe? Yes, I remember you take sugar and milk, but
+no cream. Well, I do think this is nice!"
+
+Sylvia had seen neither mother nor son for a couple of weeks, and her
+eyes coming fresh to them noticed much change in them both. In Lady
+Ashbridge this change, though marked, was indefinable enough: she seemed
+to the girl to have somehow gone much further off than she had been
+before; she had faded, become indistinct. It was evident that she found,
+except when she was talking to Michael, a far greater difficulty in
+expressing herself, the channels of communication, as it were, were
+getting choked. . . . With Michael, the change was easily stated, he
+looked terribly tired, and it was evident that the strain of these weeks
+was telling heavily on him. And yet, as Sylvia noticed with a sudden
+sense of personal pride in him, not one jot of his patient tenderness
+for his mother was abated. Tired as he was, nervous, on edge, whenever
+he dealt with her, either talking to her, or watching for any little
+attention she might need, his face was alert with love. But she noticed
+that when the footman brought in tea, and in arranging the cups let a
+spoon slip jangling from its saucer, Michael jumped as if a bomb had
+gone off, and under his breath said to the man, "You clumsy fool!"
+Little as the incident was, she, knowing Michael's courtesy and
+politeness, found it significant, as bearing on the evidence of his
+tired face. Then, next moment his mother said something to him, and
+instantly his love transformed and irradiated it.
+
+To-day, more than ever before, Lady Ashbridge seemed to exist only
+through him. As Sylvia knew, she had been for the last few weeks
+constantly disagreeable to him; but she wondered whether this exacting,
+meticulous affection was not harder to bear. Yet Michael, in spite of
+the nervous strain which now showed itself so clearly, seemed to find no
+difficulty at all in responding to it. It might have worn his nerves to
+tatters, but the tenderness and love of him passed unhampered through
+the frayed communications, for it was he himself who was brought into
+play. It was of that Michael, now more and more triumphantly revealed,
+that Sylvia felt so proud, as if he had been a possession, an
+achievement wholly personal to her. He was her Michael--it was just that
+which was becoming evident, since nothing else would account for her
+claim of him, unconsciously whispered by herself to herself.
+
+It was not long before Lady Ashbridge's nurse appeared, to take her
+upstairs to rest. At that her patient became suddenly and unaccountably
+agitated: all the happy content of the day was wiped off her mind. She
+clung to Michael.
+
+"No, no, Michael," she said, "they mustn't take me away. I know they are
+going to take me away from you altogether. You mustn't leave me."
+
+Nurse Baker came towards her.
+
+"Now, my lady, you mustn't behave like that," she said. "You know you
+are only going upstairs to rest as usual before dinner. You will see
+Lord Comber again then."
+
+She shrank from her, shielding herself behind Michael's shoulder.
+
+"No, Michael, no!" she repeated. "I'm going to be taken away from you.
+And look, Miss--ah, my dear, I have forgotten your name--look, she has
+got no hat on. She was going to stop with me a long time. Michael, must
+I go?"
+
+Michael saw the nurse looking at her, watching her with that quiet eye
+of the trained attendant.
+
+Then she spoke to Michael.
+
+"Well, if Lord Comber will just step outside with me," she said, "we'll
+see if we can arrange for you to stop a little longer."
+
+"And you'll come back, Michael," said she.
+
+Michael saw that the nurse wanted to say something to him, and with
+infinite gentleness disentangled the clinging of Lady Ashbridge's hand.
+
+"Why, of course I will," he said. "And won't you give Miss Falbe another
+cup of tea?"
+
+Lady Ashbridge hesitated a moment.
+
+"Yes, I'll do that," she said. "And by the time I've done that you will
+be back again, won't you?"
+
+Michael followed the nurse from the room, who closed the door without
+shutting it.
+
+"There's something I don't like about her this evening," she said. "All
+day I have been rather anxious. She must be watched very carefully. Now
+I want you to get her to come upstairs, and I'll try to make her go to
+bed."
+
+Michael felt his mouth go suddenly dry.
+
+"What do you expect?" he said.
+
+"I don't expect anything, but we must be prepared. A change comes very
+quickly."
+
+Michael nodded, and they went back together.
+
+"Now, mother darling," he said, "up you go with Nurse Baker. You've been
+out all day, and you must have a good rest before dinner. Shall I come
+up and see you soon?"
+
+A curious, sly look came into Lady Ashbridge's face.
+
+"Yes, but where am I going to?" she said. "How do I know Nurse Baker
+will take me to my own room?"
+
+"Because I promise you she will," said Michael.
+
+That instantly reassured her. Mood after mood, as Michael saw, were
+passing like shadows over her mind.
+
+"Ah, that's enough!" she said. "Good-bye, Miss--there! the name's gone
+again! But won't you sit here and have a talk to Michael, and let him
+show you over the house to see if you like it against the time--Oh,
+Michael said I mustn't worry you about that. And won't you stop and have
+dinner with us, and afterwards we can sing."
+
+Michael put his arm around her.
+
+"We'll talk about that while you're resting," he said. "Don't keep Nurse
+Baker waiting any longer, mother."
+
+She nodded and smiled.
+
+"No, no; mustn't keep anybody waiting," she said. "Your father taught me
+to be punctual."
+
+When they had left the room together, Sylvia turned to Michael.
+
+"Michael, my dear," she said, "I think you are--well, I think you are
+Michael."
+
+She saw that at the moment he was not thinking of her at all, and her
+heart honoured him for that.
+
+"I'm anxious about my mother to-night," he said. "She has been so--I
+suppose you must call it--well all day, but the nurse isn't easy about
+her."
+
+Suddenly all his fears and his fatigue and his trouble looked out of his
+eyes.
+
+"I'm frightened," he said, "and it's so unutterably feeble of me. And
+I'm tired: you don't know how tired, and try as I may I feel that all
+the time it is no use. My mother is slipping, slipping away."
+
+"But, my dear, no wonder you are tired," she said. "Michael, can't
+anybody help? It isn't right you should do everything."
+
+He shook his head, smiling.
+
+"They can't help," he said. "I'm the only person who can help her. And
+I--"
+
+He stood up, bracing mind and body.
+
+"And I'm so brutally proud of it," he said. "She wants me. Well, that's
+a lot for a son to be able to say. Sylvia, I would give anything to keep
+her."
+
+Still he was not thinking of her, and knowing that, she came close
+to him and put her arm in his. She longed to give him some feeling of
+comradeship. She could be sisterly to him over this without suggesting
+to him what she could not be to him. Her instinct had divined right,
+and she felt the answering pressure of his elbow that acknowledged her
+sympathy, welcomed it, and thought no more about it.
+
+"You are giving everything to keep her," she said. "You are giving
+yourself. What further gift is there, Michael?"
+
+He kept her arm close pressed by him, and she knew by the frankness of
+that holding caress he was thinking of her still either not at all, or,
+she hoped, as a comrade who could perhaps be of assistance to courage
+and clear-sightedness in difficult hours. She wanted to be no more than
+that to him just now; it was the most she could do for him, but with
+a desire, the most acute she had ever felt for him, she wanted him to
+accept that--to take her comradeship as he would have surely taken her
+brother's. Once, in the last intimate moments they had had together, he
+had refused to accept that attitude from her--had felt it a relationship
+altogether impossible. She had seen his point of view, and recognised
+the justice of the embarrassment. Now, very simply but very eagerly,
+she hoped, as with some tugging strain, that he would not reject it. She
+knew she had missed this brother, who had refused to be brother to her.
+But he had been about his own business, and he had been doing his own
+business, with a quiet splendour that drew her eyes to him, and as they
+stood there, thus linked, she wondered if her heart was following. . . .
+She had seen, last December, how reasonable it was of him to refuse this
+domestic sort of intimacy with her; now, she found herself intensely
+longing that he would not persist in his refusal.
+
+Suddenly Michael awoke to the fact of her presence, and abruptly he
+moved away from her.
+
+"Thanks, Sylvia," he said. "I know I have your--your good wishes.
+But--well, I am sure you understand."
+
+She understood perfectly well. And the understanding of it cut her to
+the quick.
+
+"Have you got any right to behave like that to me, Michael?" she asked.
+"What have I done that you should treat me quite like that?"
+
+He looked at her, completely recalled in mind to her alone. All the
+hopes and desires of the autumn smote him with encompassing blows.
+
+"Yes, every right," he said. "I wasn't heeding you. I only thought of my
+mother, and the fact that there was a very dear friend by me. And then I
+came to myself: I remembered who the friend was."
+
+They stood there in silence, apart, for a moment. Then Michael came
+closer. The desire for human sympathy, and that the sympathy he most
+longed for, gripped him again.
+
+"I'm a brute," he said. "It was awfully nice of you to--to offer me
+that. I accept it so gladly. I'm wretchedly anxious."
+
+He looked up at her.
+
+"Take my arm again," he said.
+
+She felt the crook of his elbow tighten again on her wrist. She had not
+known before how much she prized that.
+
+"But are you sure you are right in being anxious, Mike?" she asked.
+"Isn't it perhaps your own tired nerves that make you anxious?"
+
+"I don't think so," he said. "I've been tired a long time, you see,
+and I never felt about my mother like this. She has been so bright and
+content all day, and yet there were little lapses, if you understand.
+It was as if she knew: she said good-bye to the lake and the jolly
+moor-hens and the grass. And her nurse thinks so, too. She called me out
+of the room just now to tell me that. . . . I don't know why I should
+tell you these depressing things."
+
+"Don't you?" she asked. "But I do. It's because you know I care.
+Otherwise you wouldn't tell me: you couldn't."
+
+For a moment the balance quavered in his mind between Sylvia the beloved
+and Sylvia the friend. It inclined to the friend.
+
+"Yes, that's why," he said. "And I reproach myself, you know. All these
+years I might, if I had tried harder, have been something to my mother.
+I might have managed it. I thought--at least I felt--that she didn't
+encourage me. But I was a beast to have been discouraged. And now her
+wanting me has come just when it isn't her unclouded self that wants me.
+It's as if--as if it had been raining all day, and just on sunset there
+comes a gleam in the west. And so soon after it's night."
+
+"You made the gleam," said Sylvia.
+
+"But so late; so awfully late."
+
+Suddenly he stood stiff, listening to some sound which at present
+she did not hear. It sounded a little louder, and her ears caught the
+running of footsteps on the stairs outside. Next moment the door opened,
+and Lady Ashbridge's maid put in a pale face.
+
+"Will you go to her ladyship, my lord?" she said. "Her nurse wants you.
+She told me to telephone to Sir James."
+
+Sylvia moved with him, not disengaging her arm, towards the door.
+
+"Michael, may I wait?" she said. "You might want me, you know. Please
+let me wait."
+
+
+Lady Ashbridge's room was on the floor above, and Michael ran up the
+intervening stairs three at a time. He knocked and entered and wondered
+why he had been sent for, for she was sitting quietly on her sofa near
+the window. But he noticed that Nurse Baker stood very close to her.
+Otherwise there was nothing that was in any way out of the ordinary.
+
+"And here he is," said the nurse reassuringly as he entered.
+
+Lady Ashbridge turned towards the door as Michael came in, and when he
+met her eyes he knew why he had been sent for, why at this moment Sir
+James was being summoned. For she looked at him not with the clouded
+eyes of affection, not with the mother-spirit striving to break
+through the shrouding trouble of her brain, but with eyes of blank
+non-recognition. She saw him with the bodily organs of her vision,
+but the picture of him was conveyed no further: there was a blank wall
+behind her eyes.
+
+Michael did not hesitate. It was possible that he still might be
+something to her, that he, his presence, might penetrate.
+
+"But you are not resting, mother," he said. "Why are you sitting up? I
+came to talk to you, as I said I would, while you rested."
+
+Suddenly into those blank, irresponsive eyes there leaped recognition.
+He saw the pupils contract as they focused themselves on him, and hand
+in hand with recognition there leaped into them hate. Instantly that
+was veiled again. But it had been there, and now it was not banished; it
+lurked behind in the shadows, crouching and waiting.
+
+She answered him at once, but in a voice that was quite toneless. It
+seemed like that of a child repeating a lesson which it had learned by
+heart, and could be pronounced while it was thinking of something quite
+different.
+
+"I was waiting till you came, my dear," she said. "Now I will lie down.
+Come and sit by me, Michael."
+
+She watched him narrowly while she spoke, then gave a quick glance at
+her nurse, as if to see that they were not making signals to each other.
+There was an easy chair just behind her head, and as Michael wheeled it
+up near her sofa, he looked at the nurse. She moved her hand slightly
+towards the left, and interpreting this, he moved the chair a little to
+the left, so that he would not sit, as he had intended, quite close to
+the sofa.
+
+"And you enjoyed your day in the country, mother?" asked Michael.
+
+She looked at him sideways and slowly. Then again, as if recollecting a
+task she had committed to memory, she answered.
+
+"Yes, so much," she said. "All the trees and the birds and the sunshine.
+I enjoyed them so much."
+
+She paused a moment.
+
+"Bring your chair a little closer, my darling," she said. "You are so
+far off. And why do you wait, nurse? I will call you if I want you."
+
+Michael felt one moment of sickening spiritual terror. He understood
+quite plainly why Nurse Baker did not want him to go near to his mother,
+and the reason of it gave him this pang, not of nervousness but of black
+horror, that the sane and the sensitive must always feel when they are
+brought intimately in contact with some blind derangement of instinct in
+those most nearly allied to them. Physically, on the material plane, he
+had no fear at all.
+
+He made a movement, grasping the arm of his chair, as if to wheel it
+closer, but he came actually no nearer her.
+
+"Why don't you go away, nurse?" said Lady Ashbridge, "and leave my son
+and me to talk about our nice day in the country?"
+
+Nurse Baker answered quite naturally.
+
+"I want to talk, too, my lady," she said. "I went with you and Lord
+Comber. We all enjoyed it together."
+
+It seemed to Michael that his mother made some violent effort towards
+self-control. He saw one of her hands that were lying on her knee clench
+itself, so that the knuckles stood out white.
+
+"Yes, we will all talk together, then," she said. "Or--er--shall I have
+a little doze first? I am rather sleepy with so much pleasant air. And
+you are sleepy, too, are you not, Michael? Yes, I see you look sleepy.
+Shall we have a little nap, as I often do after tea? Then, when I am
+fresh again, you shall come back, nurse, and we will talk over our
+pleasant day."
+
+When he entered the room, Michael had not quite closed the door, and
+now, as half an hour before, he heard steps on the stairs. A moment
+afterwards his mother heard them too.
+
+"What is that?" she said. "Who is coming now to disturb me, just when I
+wanted to have a nap?"
+
+There came a knock at the door. Nurse Baker did not move her head, but
+continued watching her patient, with hands ready to act.
+
+"Come in," she said, not looking round.
+
+Lady Ashbridge's face was towards the door. As Sir James entered, she
+suddenly sprang up, and in her right hand that lay beside her was a
+knife, which she had no doubt taken from the tea-table when she came
+upstairs. She turned swiftly towards Michael, and stabbed at him with
+it.
+
+"It's a trap," she cried. "You've led me into a trap. They are going to
+take me away."
+
+Michael had thrown up his arm to shield his head. The blow fell between
+shoulder and elbow, and he felt the edge of the knife grate on his bone.
+
+And from deep in his heart sprang the leaping fountains of compassion
+and love and yearning pity.
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Michael was sitting in the big studio at the Falbes' house late
+one afternoon at the end of June, and the warmth and murmur of the
+full-blown summer filled the air. The day had so far declined that the
+rays of the sun, level in its setting, poured slantingly in through
+the big window to the north, and shining through the foliage of the
+plane-trees outside made a diaper of rosy illuminated spots and angled
+shadows on the whitewashed wall. As the leaves stirred in the evening
+breeze, this pattern shifted and twinkled; now, as the wind blew aside a
+bunch of foliage, a lake of rosy gold would spring up on the wall; then,
+as the breath of movement died, the green shadows grew thicker again
+faintly stirring. Through the window to the south, which Hermann had
+caused to be cut there, since the studio was not used for painting
+purposes, Michael could see into the patch of high-walled garden, where
+Mrs. Falbe was sitting in a low basket chair, completely absorbed in a
+book of high-born and ludicrous adventures. She had made a mild attempt
+when she found that Michael intended to wait for Sylvia's return to
+entertain him till she came; but, with a little oblique encouragement,
+remarking on the beauty and warmth of the evening, and the pleasure of
+sitting out of doors, Michael had induced her to go out again, and leave
+him alone in the studio, free to live over again that which, twenty-four
+hours ago, had changed life for him.
+
+He reconstructed it as he sat on the sofa and dwelt on the pearl-moments
+of it. Just this time yesterday he had come in and found Sylvia alone.
+She had got up, he remembered, to give him greeting, and just opposite
+the fireplace they had come face to face. She held in her hand a small
+white rose which she had plucked in the tiny garden here in the middle
+of London. It was not a very fine specimen, but it was a rose, and she
+had said in answer to his depreciatory glance: "But you must see it when
+I have washed it. One has to wash London flowers."
+
+Then . . . the miracle happened. Michael, with the hand that had just
+taken hers, stroked a petal of this prized vegetable, with no thought in
+his mind stronger than the thoughts that had been indigenous there since
+Christmas. As his finger first touched the rim of the town-bred petals,
+undersized yet not quite lacking in "rose-quality," he had intended
+nothing more than to salute the flower, as Sylvia made her apology for
+it. "One has to wash London flowers." But as he touched it he looked
+up at her, and the quiet, usual song of his thoughts towards her grew
+suddenly loud and stupefyingly sweet. It was as if from the vacant
+hive-door the bees swarmed. In her eyes, as they met his, he thought
+he saw an expectancy, a welcome, and his hand, instead of stroking the
+rose-petals, closed on the rose and on the hand that held it, and kept
+them close imprisoned and strongly gripped. He could not remember if he
+had spoken any word, but he had seen that in her face which rendered all
+speech unnecessary, and, knowing in the bones and the blood of him that
+he was right, he kissed her. And then she had said, "Yes, Michael."
+
+His hand still was tight on hers that held the crumpled rose, and when
+he opened it, lover-like, to stroke and kiss it, there was a spot of
+blood in the palm of it, where a rose-thorn had pricked her, just one
+drop of Sylvia's blood. As he kissed it, he had wiped it away with
+the tip of his tongue between his lips, and she smiling had said, "Oh,
+Michael, how silly!"
+
+They had sat together on the sofa where this afternoon he sat alone
+waiting for her. Every moment of that half hour was as distinct as the
+outline of trees and hills just before a storm, and yet it was still
+entirely dream-like. He knew it had happened, for nothing but the
+happening of it would account now for the fact of himself; but, though
+there was nothing in the world so true, there was nothing so incredible.
+Yet it was all as clean-cut in his mind as etched lines, and round
+each line sprang flowers and singing birds. For a long space there was
+silence after they had sat down, and then she said, "I think I always
+loved you, Michael, only I didn't know it. . . ." Thereafter, foolish
+love talk: he had claimed a superiority there, for he had always loved
+her and had always known it. Much time had been wasted owing to her
+ignorance . . . she ought to have known. But all the time that existed
+was theirs now. In all the world there was no more time than what they
+had. The crumpled rose had its petals rehabilitated, the thorn that had
+pricked her was peeled off. They wondered if Hermann had come in yet.
+Then, by some vague process of locomotion, they found themselves at
+the piano, and with her arm around his neck Sylvia has whispered half a
+verse of the song of herself. . . .
+
+They became a little more definite over lover-confessions. Michael had,
+so to speak, nothing to confess: he had loved all along--he had wanted
+her all along; there never had been the least pretence or nonsense about
+it. Her path was a little more difficult to trace, but once it had been
+traversed it was clear enough. She had liked him always; she had felt
+sister-like from the moment when Hermann brought him to the house, and
+sister-like she had continued to feel, even when Michael had definitely
+declared there was "no thoroughfare" there. She had missed that
+relationship when it stopped: she did not mind telling him that now,
+since it was abandoned by them both; but not for the world would she
+have confessed before that she had missed it. She had loved being asked
+to come and see his mother, and it was during those visits that she had
+helped to pile the barricade across the "sister-thoroughfare" with her
+own hands. She began to share Michael's sense of the impossibility of
+that road. They could not walk down it together, for they had to be
+either more or less to each other than that. And, during these visits,
+she had begun to understand (and her face a little hid itself) what
+Michael's love meant. She saw it manifested towards his mother; she was
+taught by it; she learned it; and, she supposed, she loved it. Anyhow,
+having seen it, she could not want Michael as a brother any longer, and
+if he still wanted anything else, she supposed (so she supposed) that
+some time he would mention that fact. Yes: she began to hope that he
+would not be very long about it. . . .
+
+
+Michael went over this very deliberately as he sat waiting for her
+twenty-four hours later. He rehearsed this moment and that over and over
+again: in mind he followed himself and Sylvia across to the piano, not
+hurrying their steps, and going through the verse of the song she
+sang at the pace at which she actually sang it. And, as he dreamed and
+recollected, he heard a little stir in the quiet house, and Sylvia came.
+
+They met just as they met yesterday in front of the fireplace.
+
+"Oh, Michael, have you been waiting long?" she said.
+
+"Yes, hours, or perhaps a couple of minutes. I don't know."
+
+"Ah, but which? If hours, I shall apologise, and then excuse myself by
+saying that you must have come earlier than you intended. If minutes I
+shall praise myself for being so exceedingly punctual."
+
+"Minutes, then," said he. "I'll praise you instead. Praise is more
+convincing if somebody else does it."
+
+"Yes, but you aren't somebody else. Now be sensible. Have you done all
+the things you told me you were going to do?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Sylvia released her hands from his.
+
+"Tell me, then," she said. "You've seen your father?"
+
+There was no cloud on Michael's face. There was such sunlight where his
+soul sat that no shadow could fall across it.
+
+"Oh, yes, I saw him," he said.
+
+He captured Sylvia's hand again.
+
+"And what is more he saw me, so to speak," he said. "He realised that I
+had an existence independent of him. I used to be a--a sort of clock to
+him; he could put its hands to point to any hour he chose. Well, he has
+realised--he has really--that I am ticking along on my own account.
+He was quite respectful, not only to me, which doesn't matter, but to
+you--which does." Michael laughed, as he plaited his fingers in with
+hers.
+
+"My father is so comic," he said, "and unlike most great humourists his
+humour is absolutely unconscious. He was perfectly well aware that I
+meant to marry you, for I told him that last Christmas, adding that you
+did not mean to marry me. So since then I think he's got used to you.
+Used to you--fancy getting used to you!"
+
+"Especially since he had never seen me," said the girl.
+
+"That makes it less odd. Getting used to you after seeing you would be
+much more incredible. I was saying that in a way he had got used to
+you, just as he's got used to my being a person, and not a clock on his
+chimney-piece, and what seems to have made so much difference is what
+Aunt Barbara told him last night, namely, that your mother was a Tracy.
+Sylvia, don't let it be too much for you, but in a certain far-away
+manner he realises that you are 'one of us.' Isn't he a comic? He's
+going to make the best of you, it appears. To make the best of you! You
+can't beat that, you know. In fact, he told me to ask if he might come
+and pay his respects to your mother to-morrow.
+
+"And what about my singing, my career?" she asked.
+
+Michael laughed again.
+
+"He was funny about that also," he said. "My father took it absolutely
+for granted that having made this tremendous social advance, you
+would bury your past, all but the Tracy part of it, as if it had
+been something disgraceful which the exalted Comber family agreed to
+overlook."
+
+"And what did you say?"
+
+"I? Oh, I told him that, of course, you would do as you pleased about
+that, but that for my part I should urge you most strongly to do nothing
+of the kind."
+
+"And he?"
+
+"He got four inches taller. What is so odd is that as long as I never
+opposed my father's wishes, as long as I was the clock on the chimney
+piece, I was terrified at him. The thought of opposing myself to him
+made my knees quake. But the moment I began doing so, I found there was
+nothing to be frightened at."
+
+Sylvia got up and began walking up and down the long room.
+
+"But what am I to do about it, Michael?" she asked. "Oh, I blush when
+I think of a conversation I had with Hermann about you, just before
+Christmas, when I knew you were going to propose to me. I said that I
+could never give up my singing. Can you picture the self-importance of
+that? Why, it doesn't seem to me to matter two straws whether I do
+or not. Naturally, I don't want to earn my living by it any more, but
+whether I sing or not doesn't matter. And even as the words are in my
+mouth I try to imagine myself not singing any more, and I can't. It's
+become part of me, and while I blush to think of what I said to Hermann,
+I wonder whether it's not true."
+
+She came and sat down by him again.
+
+"I believe you have got enough artistic instinct to understand that,
+Michael," she said, "and to know what a tremendous help it is to one's
+art to be a professional, and to be judged seriously. I suppose that,
+ideally, if one loves music as I do one ought to be able to do one's
+very best, whether one is singing professionally or not, but it
+is hardly possible. Why, the whole difference between amateurs and
+professionals is that amateurs sing charmingly and professionals just
+sing. Only they sing as well as they possibly can, not only because they
+love it, but because if they don't they will be dropped on to, and if
+they continue not singing their best, will lose their place which they
+have so hardly won. I can see myself, perhaps, not singing at all,
+literally never opening my lips in song again, but I can't see myself
+coming down to the Drill Hall at Brixton, extremely beautifully
+dressed, with rows of pearls, and arriving rather late, and just singing
+charmingly. It's such a spur to know that serious musicians judge one's
+performance by the highest possible standard. It's so relaxing to think
+that one can easily sing well enough, that one can delight ninety-nine
+hundredths of the audience without any real effort. I could sing 'The
+Lost Chord' and move the whole Drill Hall at Brixton to tears. But there
+might be one man there who knew, you or Hermann or some other, and at
+the end he would just shrug his shoulders ever so slightly, and I would
+wish I had never been born."
+
+She paused a moment.
+
+"I'll not sing any more at all, ever," she said, "or I must sing to
+those who will take me seriously and judge me ruthlessly. To sing just
+well enough to please isn't possible. I'll do either you like."
+
+Mrs. Falbe strayed in at this moment with her finger in her book, but
+otherwise as purposeless as a wandering mist.
+
+"I was afraid it might be going to get chilly," she remarked. "After a
+hot day there is often a cool evening. Will you stop and dine, Lord--I
+mean, Michael?"
+
+"Please; certainly!" said Michael.
+
+"Then I hope there will be something for you to eat. Sylvia, is there
+something to eat? No doubt you will see to that, darling. I shall just
+rest upstairs for a little before dinner, and perhaps finish my book. So
+pleased you are stopping."
+
+She drifted towards the studio door, in thistledown fashion catching at
+corners a little, and then moving smoothly on again, talking gently half
+to herself, half to the others.
+
+"And Hermann's not in yet, but if Lord--I mean, Michael, is going to
+stop here till dinnertime, it won't matter whether Hermann comes in in
+time to dress or not, as Michael is not dressed either. Oh, there is the
+postman's knock! What a noise! I am not expecting any letters."
+
+The knock in question, however, proved to be Hermann, who, as was
+generally the case, had forgotten his latchkey. He ran into his mother
+at the studio door, and came and sat down, regardless of whether he was
+wanted or not, between the two on the sofa, and took an arm of each.
+
+"I probably intrude," he said, "but such is my intention. I've just seen
+Lady Barbara, who says that the shock has not been too much for Mike's
+father. That is a good thing; she says he is taking nourishment much as
+usual. I suppose I oughtn't to jest on so serious a subject, but I
+took my cue from Lady Barbara. It appears that we have blue blood too,
+Sylvia, and we must behave more like aristocrats. A Tracy in the time
+of King John flirted, if no more, with a Comber. And what about your
+career, Sylvia? Are you going to continue to urge your wild career,
+or not? I ask with a purpose, as Blackiston proposes we should give a
+concert together in the third week in July. The Queen's Hall is vacant
+one afternoon, and he thinks we might sing and play to them. I'm on if
+you are. It will be about the last concert of the season, too, so we
+shall have to do our best. Otherwise we, or I, anyhow, will start again
+in the autumn with a black mark. By the way, are you going to start
+again in the autumn? It wouldn't surprise me one bit to hear that you
+and Mike had been talking about just that."
+
+"Don't be too clever to live, Hermann," said Sylvia.
+
+"I don't propose to die, if you mean that. Oh, Blackiston had another
+suggestion also. He wanted to know if we would consider making a short
+tour in Germany in the autumn. He says that the beloved Fatherland is
+rather disposed to be interested in us. He thinks we should have
+good audiences at Leipzig, and so on. There's a tendency, he says, to
+recognise poor England, a cordial intention, anyhow. I said that in your
+case there might be domestic considerations which--But I think I shall
+go in any case. Lord, fancy playing in Germany to Germans again. Fancy
+being listened to by a German audience; fancy if they approved."
+
+Michael leaned forward, putting his elbow into Hermann's chest. Early
+December had already been mentioned as a date for their marriage, and as
+a pre-nuptial journey, this seemed to him a plan ecstatically ideal.
+
+"Yes, Sylvia," he said. "The answer is yes. I shall come with you, you
+know. I can see it; a triumphal procession, you two making noises, and
+me listening. A month's tour, Hermann. Middle of October till middle of
+November. Yes, yes."
+
+All his tremendous pride in her singing, dormant for the moment under
+the wonder of his love, rose to the surface. He knew what her singing
+meant to her, and, from their conversation together just now, how keen
+was her eagerness for the strict judgment of those who knew, how she
+loved that austere pinnacle of daylight. Here was an ideal opportunity;
+never yet, since she had won her place as a singer, had she sung in
+Germany, that Mecca of the musical artist, and in her case, the land
+from which she sprung. Had the scheme implied a postponement of their
+marriage, he would still have declared himself for it, for he unerringly
+felt for her in this; he knew intuitively what delicious beckoning this
+held for her.
+
+"Yes, yes," he repeated, "I must have you do that, Sylvia. I don't care
+what Hermann wants or what you want. I want it."
+
+"Yes, but who's to do the playing and the singing?" asked Hermann.
+"Isn't it a question, perhaps, for--"
+
+Michael felt quite secure about the feelings of the other two, and
+rudely interrupted.
+
+"No," he said. "It's a question for me. When the Fatherland hears that
+I am there it will no doubt ask me to play and sing instead of you two.
+Lord! Fancy marrying into such a distinguished family. I burst with
+pride!"
+
+It required, then, little debate, since all three were agreed, before
+Hermann was empowered with authority to make arrangements, and they
+remained simultaneously talking till Mrs. Falbe, again drifting in,
+announced that the bell for dinner had sounded some minutes before. She
+had her finger in the last chapter of "Lady Ursula's Ordeal," and laid
+it face downwards on the table to resume again at the earliest possible
+moment. This opportunity was granted her when, at the close of dinner,
+coffee and the evening paper came in together. This Hermann opened at
+the middle page.
+
+"Hallo!" he said. "That's horrible! The Heir Apparent of the Austrian
+Emperor has been murdered at Serajevo. Servian plot, apparently."
+
+"Oh, what a dreadful thing," said Mrs. Falbe, opening her book. "Poor
+man, what had he done?"
+
+Hermann took a cigarette, frowning.
+
+"It may be a match--" he began.
+
+Mrs. Falbe diverted her attention from "Lady Ursula" for a moment.
+
+"They are on the chimney-piece, dear," she said, thinking he spoke of
+material matches.
+
+Michael felt that Hermann saw something, or conjectured something
+ominous in this news, for he sat with knitted brow reading, and letting
+the match burn down.
+
+"Yes; it seems that Servian officers are implicated," he said. "And
+there are materials enough already for a row between Austria and Servia
+without this."
+
+"Those tiresome Balkan States," said Mrs. Falbe, slowly immersing
+herself like a diving submarine in her book. "They are always
+quarrelling. Why doesn't Austria conquer them all and have done with
+it?"
+
+This simple and striking solution of the whole Balkan question was
+her final contribution to the topic, for at this moment she became
+completely submerged, and cut off, so to speak, from the outer world, in
+the lucent depths of Lady Ursula.
+
+Hermann glanced through the other pages, and let the paper slide to the
+floor.
+
+"What will Austria do?" he said. "Supposing she threatens Servia in some
+outrageous way and Russia says she won't stand it? What then?"
+
+Michael looked across to Sylvia; he was much more interested in the way
+she dabbled the tips of her hands in the cool water of her finger bowl
+than in what Hermann was saying. Her fingers had an extraordinary life
+of their own; just now they were like a group of maidens by a fountain.
+. . . But Hermann repeated the question to him personally.
+
+"Oh, I suppose there will be a lot of telegraphing," he said, "and
+perhaps a board of arbitration. After all, one expected a European
+conflagration over the war in the Balkan States, and again over their
+row with Turkey. I don't believe in European conflagrations. We are all
+too much afraid of each other. We walk round each other like collie dogs
+on the tips of their toes, gently growling, and then quietly get back to
+our own territories and lie down again."
+
+Hermann laughed.
+
+"Thank God, there's that wonderful fire-engine in Germany ready to turn
+the hose on conflagrations."
+
+"What fire-engine?" asked Michael.
+
+"The Emperor, of course. We should have been at war ten times over but
+for him."
+
+Sylvia dried her finger-tips one by one.
+
+"Lady Barbara doesn't quite take that view of him, does she, Mike?" she
+asked.
+
+Michael suddenly remembered how one night in the flat Aunt Barbara had
+suddenly turned the conversation from the discussion of cognate topics,
+on hearing that the Falbes were Germans, only to resume it again when
+they had gone.
+
+"I don't fancy she does," he said. "But then, as you know, Aunt Barbara
+has original views on every subject."
+
+Hermann did not take the possible hint here conveyed to drop the matter.
+
+"Well, then, what do you think about him?" he asked.
+
+Michael laughed.
+
+"My dear Hermann," he said, "how often have you told me that we English
+don't pay the smallest attention to international politics. I am aware
+that I don't; I know nothing whatever about them."
+
+Hermann shook off the cloud of preoccupation that so unaccountably,
+to Michael's thinking, had descended on him, and walked across to the
+window.
+
+"Well, long may ignorance be bliss," he said. "Lord, what a divine
+evening! 'Uber allen gipfeln ist Ruhe.' At least, there is peace on the
+only summits visible, which are house roofs. There's not a breath of
+wind in the trees and chimney-pots; and it's hot, it's really hot."
+
+"I was afraid there was going to be a chill at sunset," remarked Mrs.
+Falbe subaqueously.
+
+"Then you were afraid even where no fear was, mother darling," said he,
+"and if you would like to sit out in the garden I'll take a chair out
+for you, and a table and candles. Let's all sit out; it's a divine hour,
+this hour after sunset. There are but a score of days in the whole year
+when the hour after sunset is warm like this. It's such a pity to
+waste one indoors. The young people"--and he pointed to Sylvia and
+Michael--"will gaze into each other's hearts, and Mamma's will beat in
+unison with Lady Ursula's, and I will sit and look at the sky and become
+profoundly sentimental, like a good German."
+
+Hermann and Michael bestirred themselves, and presently the whole little
+party had encamped on chairs placed in an oasis of rugs (this was done
+at the special request of Mrs. Falbe, since Lady Ursula had caught a
+chill that developed into consumption) in the small, high-walled garden.
+Beyond at the bottom lay the road along the embankment and the grey-blue
+Thames, and the dim woods of Battersea Park across the river. When they
+came out, sparrows were still chirping in the ivy on the studio wall
+and in the tall angle-leaved planes at the bottom of the little plot,
+discussing, no doubt, the domestic arrangements for their comfort
+during the night. But presently a sudden hush fell upon them, and their
+shrillness was sharp no more against the drowsy hum of the city. The
+sky overhead was of veiled blue, growing gradually more toneless as the
+light faded, and was unflecked by any cloud, except where, high in the
+zenith, a fleece of rosy vapour still caught the light of the sunken
+sun, and flamed with the soft radiance of some snow-summit. Near it
+there burned a molten planet, growing momentarily brighter as the night
+gathered and presently beginning to be dimmed again as a tawny moon
+three days past the full rose in the east above the low river horizon.
+Occasionally a steamer hooted from the Thames and the noise of churned
+waters sounded, or the crunch of a motor's wheels, or the tapping of
+the heels of a foot passenger on the pavement below the garden wall. But
+such evidence of outside seemed but to accentuate the perfect peace of
+this secluded little garden where the four sat: the hour and the place
+were cut off from all turmoil and activities: for a moment the stream
+of all their lives had flowed into a backwater, where it rested immobile
+before the travel that was yet to come. So it seemed to Michael then,
+and so years afterwards it seemed to him, as vividly as on this evening
+when the tawny moon grew golden as it climbed the empty heavens, dimming
+the stars around it.
+
+What they talked of, even though it was Sylvia who spoke, seemed
+external to the spirit of the hour. They seemed to have reached a point,
+some momentary halting-place, where speech and thought even lay outside,
+and the need of the spirit was merely to exist and be conscious of
+its existence. Sometimes for a moment his past life with its
+self-repression, its mute yearnings, its chrysalis stirrings, formed a
+mist that dispersed again, sometimes for a moment in wonder at what
+the future held, what joys and troubles, what achings, perhaps, and
+anguishes, the unknown knocked stealthily at the door of his mind, but
+then stole away unanswered and unwelcome, and for that hour, while Mrs.
+Falbe finished with Lady Ursula, while Hermann smoked and sighed like a
+sentimental German, and while he and Sylvia sat, speaking occasionally,
+but more often silent, he was in some kind of Nirvana for which its own
+existence was everything. Movement had ceased: he held his breath while
+that divine pause lasted.
+
+When it was broken, there was no shattering of it: it simply died away
+like a long-drawn chord as Mrs. Falbe closed her book.
+
+"She died," she said, "I knew she would."
+
+Hermann gave a great shout of laughter.
+
+"Darling mother, I'm ever so much obliged," he said. "We had to return
+to earth somehow. Where has everybody else been?"
+
+Michael stirred in his chair.
+
+"I've been here," he said.
+
+"How dull! Oh, I suppose that's not polite to Sylvia. I've been in
+Leipzig and in Frankfort and in Munich. You and Sylvia have been there,
+too, I may tell you. But I've also been here: it's jolly here."
+
+His sentimentalism had apparently not quite passed from him.
+
+"Ah, we've stolen this hour!" he said. "We've taken it out of the
+hurly-burly and had it to ourselves. It's been ripping. But I'm back
+from the rim of the world. Oh, I've been there, too, and looked out over
+the immortal sea. Lieber Gott, what a sea, where we all come from, and
+where we all go to! We're just playing on the sand where the waves have
+cast us up for one little hour. Oh, the pleasant warm sand and the play!
+How I love it."
+
+He got out of his chair stretching himself, as Mrs. Falbe passed into
+the house, and gave a hand on each side to Michael and Sylvia.
+
+"Ah, it was a good thing I just caught that train at Victoria nearly
+a year ago," he said. "If I had been five seconds later, I should have
+missed it, and so I should have missed my friend, and Sylvia would have
+missed hers, and Mike would have missed his. As it is, here we all are.
+Behold the last remnant of my German sentimentality evaporates, but I am
+filled with a German desire for beer. Let us come into the studio, liebe
+Kinder, and have beer and music and laughter. We cannot recapture this
+hour or prolong it. But it was good, oh, so good! I thank God for this
+hour."
+
+Sylvia put her hand on her brother's arm, looking at him with just a
+shade of anxiety.
+
+"Nothing wrong, Hermann?" she asked.
+
+"Wrong? There is nothing wrong unless it is wrong to be happy. But we
+have to go forward: my only quarrel with life is that. I would stop it
+now if I could, so that time should not run on, and we should stay just
+as we are. Ah, what does the future hold? I am glad I do not know."
+
+Sylvia laughed.
+
+"The immediate future holds beer apparently," she said. "It also hold
+a great deal of work for you and me, if it is to hold Leipzig and
+Frankfort and Munich. Oh, Hermann, what glorious days!"
+
+They walked together into the studio, and as they entered Hermann looked
+back over her into the dim garden. Then he pulled down the blind with a
+rattle.
+
+"'Move on there!' said the policeman," he remarked. "And so they moved
+on."
+
+
+The news about the murder of the Austrian Grand Duke, which, for that
+moment at dinner, had caused Hermann to peer with apprehension into the
+veil of the future, was taken quietly enough by the public in general in
+England. It was a nasty incident, no doubt, and the murder having been
+committed on Servian soil, the pundits of the Press gave themselves
+an opportunity for subsequently saying that they were right, by
+conjecturing that Austria might insist on a strict inquiry into the
+circumstances, and the due punishment of not only the actual culprits
+but of those also who perhaps were privy to the plot. But three days
+afterwards there was but little uneasiness; the Stock Exchanges of
+the European capitals--those highly sensitive barometers of coming
+storm--were but slightly affected for the moment, and within a week
+had steadied themselves again. From Austria there came no sign of any
+unreasonable demand which might lead to trouble with Servia, and so with
+Slavonic feeling generally, and by degrees that threatening of storm,
+that sudden lightning on the horizon passed out of the mind of the
+public. There had been that one flash, no more, and even that had not
+been answered by any growl of thunder; the storm did not at once move
+up and the heavens above were still clear and sunny by day, and
+starry-kirtled at night. But here and there were those who, like Hermann
+on the first announcement of the catastrophe, scented trouble, and
+Michael, going to see Aunt Barbara one afternoon early in the second
+week of July, found that she was one of them.
+
+"I distrust it all, my dear," she said to him. "I am full of uneasiness.
+And what makes me more uneasy is that they are taking it so quietly
+at the Austrian Embassy and at the German. I dined at one Embassy
+last night and at the other only a few nights ago, and I can't get
+anybody--not even the most indiscreet of the Secretaries--to say a word
+about it."
+
+"But perhaps there isn't a word to be said," suggested Michael.
+
+"I can't believe that. Austria cannot possibly let an incident of that
+sort pass. There is mischief brewing. If she was merely intending to
+insist--as she has every right to do--on an inquiry being held that
+should satisfy reasonable demands for justice, she would have insisted
+on that long ago. But a fortnight has passed now, and still she makes
+no sign. I feel sure that something is being arranged. Dear me, I quite
+forgot, Tony asked me not to talk about it. But it doesn't matter with
+you."
+
+"But what do you mean by something being arranged?" asked Michael.
+
+She looked round as if to assure herself that she and Michael were
+alone.
+
+"I mean this: that Austria is being persuaded to make some outrageous
+demand, some demand that no independent country could possibly grant."
+
+"But who is persuading her?" asked Michael.
+
+"My dear, you--like all the rest of England--are fast asleep. Who but
+Germany, and that dangerous monomaniac who rules Germany? She has long
+been wanting war, and she has only been delaying the dawning of Der Tag,
+till all her preparations were complete, and she was ready to hurl her
+armies, and her fleet too, east and west and north. Mark my words! She
+is about ready now, and I believe she is going to take advantage of her
+opportunity."
+
+She leaned forward in her chair.
+
+"It is such an opportunity as has never occurred before," she said, "and
+in a hundred years none so fit may occur again. Here are we--England--on
+the brink of civil war with Ireland and the Home Rulers; our hands are
+tied, or, rather, are occupied with our own troubles. Anyhow, Germany
+thinks so: that I know for a fact among so much that is only conjecture.
+And perhaps she is right. Who knows whether she may not be right, and
+that if she forces on war whether we shall range ourselves with our
+allies?"
+
+Michael laughed.
+
+"But aren't you piling up a European conflagration rather in a hurry,
+Aunt Barbara?" he asked.
+
+"There will be hurry enough for us, for France and Russia and perhaps
+England, but not for Germany. She is never in a hurry: she waits till
+she is ready."
+
+A servant brought in tea and Lady Barbara waited till he had left the
+room again.
+
+"It is as simple as an addition sum," she said, "if you grant the first
+step, that Austria is going to make some outrageous demand of
+Servia. What follows? Servia refuses that demand, and Austria begins
+mobilisation in order to enforce it. Servia appeals to Russia,
+invokes the bond of blood, and Russia remonstrates with Austria. Her
+representations will be of no use: you may stake all you have on that;
+and eventually, since she will be unable to draw back she, too, will
+begin in her slow, cumbrous manner, hampered by those immense distances
+and her imperfect railway system, to mobilise also. Then will Germany,
+already quite prepared, show her hand. She will demand that Russia shall
+cease mobilisation, and again will Russia refuse. That will set the
+military machinery of France going. All the time the governments of
+Europe will be working for peace, all, that is, except one, which is
+situated at Berlin."
+
+Michael felt inclined to laugh at this rapid and disastrous sequence of
+ominous forebodings; it was so completely characteristic of Aunt Barbara
+to take the most violent possible view of the situation, which no doubt
+had its dangers. And what Michael felt was felt by the enormous majority
+of English people.
+
+"Dear Aunt Barbara, you do get on quick," he said.
+
+"It will happen quickly," she said. "There is that little cloud in the
+east like a man's hand today, and rather like that mailed fist which
+our sweet peaceful friend in Germany is so fond of talking about. But it
+will spread over the sky, I tell you, like some tropical storm. France
+is unready, Russia is unready; only Germany and her marionette, Austria,
+the strings of which she pulls, is ready."
+
+"Go on prophesying," said Michael.
+
+"I wish I could. Ever since that Sarajevo murder I have thought of
+nothing else day and night. But how events will develop then I can't
+imagine. What will England do? Who knows? I only know what Germany
+thinks she will do, and that is, stand aside because she can't stir,
+with this Irish mill-stone round her neck. If Germany thought otherwise,
+she is perfectly capable of sending a dozen submarines over to our naval
+manoeuvres and torpedoing our battleships right and left."
+
+Michael laughed outright at this.
+
+"While a fleet of Zeppelins hovers over London, and drops bombs on the
+War Office and the Admiralty," he suggested.
+
+But Aunt Barbara was not in the least diverted by this.
+
+"And if England stands aside," she said, "Der Tag will only dawn a
+little later, when Germany has settled with France and Russia. We shall
+live to see Der Tag, Michael, unless we are run over by motor-buses, and
+pray God we shall see it soon, for the sooner the better. Your adorable
+Falbes, now, Sylvia and Hermann. What do they think of it?"
+
+"Hermann was certainly rather--rather upset when he read of the Sarajevo
+murders," he said. "But he pins his faith on the German Emperor, whom he
+alluded to as a fire-engine which would put out any conflagration."
+
+Aunt Barbara rose in violent incredulity.
+
+"Pish and bosh!" she remarked. "If he had alluded to him as an
+incendiary bomb, there would have been more sense in his simile."
+
+"Anyhow, he and Sylvia are planning a musical tour in Germany in the
+autumn," said Michael.
+
+"'It's a long, long way to Tipperary,'" remarked Aunt Barbara
+enigmatically.
+
+"Why Tipperary?" asked Michael.
+
+"Oh, it's just a song I heard at a music-hall the other night. There's
+a jolly catchy tune to it, which has rung in my head ever since. That's
+the sort of music I like, something you can carry away with you. And
+your music, Michael?"
+
+"Rather in abeyance. 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. That's how I think of her: I can't think of her as anything
+else."
+
+"And how is she otherwise?"
+
+Again he shook his head.
+
+"She is wretched, though they say that all she feels is dim and veiled,
+that we mustn't think of her as actually unhappy. Sometimes there are
+good days, when she takes a certain pleasure in her walks and in looking
+after a little plot of ground where she gardens. And, thank God, that
+sudden outburst when she tried to kill me seems to have entirely passed
+from her mind. They don't think she remembers it at all. But then the
+good days are rare, and are growing rarer, and often now she sits doing
+nothing at all but crying."
+
+Aunt Barbara laid her hand on him.
+
+"Oh, my dear," she said.
+
+Michael paused for a moment, his brown eyes shining.
+
+"If only she could come back just for a little to what she was in
+January," he said. "She was happier then, I think, than she ever was
+before. I can't help wondering if anyhow I could have prolonged those
+days, by giving myself up to her more completely."
+
+"My dear, you needn't wonder about that," said Aunt Barbara. "Sir James
+told me that it was your love and nothing else at all that gave her
+those days."
+
+Michael's lips quivered.
+
+"I can't tell you what they were to me," he said, "for she and I found
+each other then, and we both felt we had missed each other so much and
+so long. She was happy then, and I, too. And now everything has
+been taken from her, and still, in spite of that, my cup is full to
+overflowing."
+
+"That's how she would have it, Michael," said Barbara.
+
+"Yes, I know that. I remind myself of that."
+
+Again he paused.
+
+"They don't think she will live very long," he said. "She is getting
+physically much weaker. But during this last week or two she has been
+less unhappy, they think. They say some new change may come any time:
+it may be only the great change--I mean her death; but it is possible
+before that that her mind will clear again. Sir James told me that
+occasionally happened, like--like a ray of sunlight after a stormy day.
+It would be good if that happened. I would give almost anything to feel
+that she and I were together again, as we were."
+
+Barbara, childless, felt something of motherhood. Michael's simplicity
+and his sincerity were already known to her, but she had never yet
+known the strength of him. You could lean on Michael. In his quiet,
+undemonstrative way he supported you completely, as a son should; there
+was no possibility of insecurity. . . .
+
+"God bless you, my dear," she said.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+One close thundery morning about a week later, Michael was sitting at
+his piano in his shirtsleeves, busy practising. He was aware that at the
+other end of the room the telephone was calling for him, but it seemed
+to be of far greater importance at the minute to finish the last page of
+one of the Bach fugues, than to attend to what anybody else might have
+to say to him. Then it suddenly flashed across him that it might be
+Sylvia who wanted to speak to him, or that there might be news about his
+mother, and his fingers leaped from the piano in the middle of a bar,
+and he ran and slid across the parquet floor.
+
+But it was neither of these, and compared to them it was a case of
+"only" Hermann who wanted to see him. But Hermann, it appeared, wanted
+to see him urgently, and, if he was in (which he was) would be with him
+in ten minutes.
+
+But the Bach thread was broken, and Michael, since it was not worth
+while trying to mend it for the sake of these few minutes, sat down by
+the open window, and idly took up the morning paper, which as yet he had
+not opened, since he had hurried over breakfast in order to get to his
+piano. The music announcements on the outside page first detained him,
+and seeing that the concert by the Falbes, which was to take place in
+five or six days, was advertised, he wondered vaguely whether it was
+about that that Hermann wanted to see him, and, if so, why he could not
+have said whatever he had to say on the telephone, instead of cutting
+things short with the curt statement that he wished to see him urgently,
+and would come round at once. Then remembering that Francis had been
+playing cricket for the Guards yesterday, he turned briskly over to the
+last page of sporting news, and found that his cousin had distinguished
+himself by making no runs at all, but by missing two expensive catches
+in the deep field. From there, after a slight inspection of a couple
+of advertisement columns, he worked back to the middle leaf, where were
+leaders and the news of nations and the movements of kings. All this
+last week he had scanned such items with a growing sense of amusement
+in the recollection of Hermann's disquiet over the Sarajevo murders,
+and Aunt Barbara's more detailed and vivid prognostications of coming
+danger, for nothing more had happened, and he supposed--vaguely only,
+since the affair had begun to fade from his mind--that Austria had
+made inquiries, and that since she was satisfied there was no public
+pronouncement to be made.
+
+The hot breeze from the window made the paper a little unmanageable for
+a moment, but presently he got it satisfactorily folded, and a big black
+headline met his eye. A half-column below it contained the demands which
+Austria had made in the Note addressed to the Servian Government.
+A glance was sufficient to show that they were framed in the most
+truculent and threatening manner possible to imagine. They were not
+the reasonable proposals that one State had a perfect right to make
+of another on whose soil and with the connivance of whose subjects the
+murders had been committed; they were a piece of arbitrary dictation, a
+threat levelled against a dependent and an inferior.
+
+Michael had read them through twice with a growing sense of uneasiness
+at the thought of how Lady Barbara's first anticipations had been
+fulfilled, when Hermann came in. He pointed to the paper Michael held.
+
+"Ah, you have seen it," he said. "Perhaps you can guess what I wanted to
+see you about."
+
+"Connected with the Austrian Note?" asked Michael.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I have not the vaguest idea."
+
+Hermann sat down on the arm of his chair.
+
+"Mike, I'm going back to Germany to-day," he said. "Now do you
+understand? I'm German."
+
+"You mean that Germany is at the back of this?"
+
+"It is obvious, isn't it? Those demands couldn't have been made without
+the consent of Austria's ally. And they won't be granted. Servia will
+appeal to Russia. And . . . and then God knows what may happen. In the
+event of that happening, I must be in my Fatherland ready to serve, if
+necessary."
+
+"You mean you think it possible you will go to war with Russia?" asked
+Michael.
+
+"Yes, I think it possible, and, if I am right, if there is that
+possibility, I can't be away from my country."
+
+"But the Emperor, the fire-engine whom you said would quench any
+conflagration?"
+
+"He is away yachting. He went off after the visit of the British fleet
+to Kiel. Who knows whether before he gets back, things may have gone
+too far? Can't you see that I must go? Wouldn't you go if you were me?
+Suppose you were in Germany now, wouldn't you hurry home?"
+
+Michael was silent, and Hermann spoke again.
+
+"And if there is trouble with Russia, France, I take it, is bound to
+join her. And if France joins her, what will England do?"
+
+The great shadow of the approaching storm fell over Michael, even as
+outside the sultry stillness of the morning grew darker.
+
+"Ah, you think that?" asked Michael.
+
+Hermann put his hand on Michael's shoulder.
+
+"Mike, you're the best friend I have," he said, "and soon, please God,
+you are going to marry the girl who is everything else in the world to
+me. You two make up my world really--you two and my mother, anyhow.
+No other individual counts, or is in the same class. You know that,
+I expect. But there is one other thing, and that's my nationality. It
+counts first. Nothing, nobody, not even Sylvia or my mother or you can
+stand between me and that. I expect you know that also, for you saw,
+nearly a year ago, what Germany is to me. Perhaps I may be quite wrong
+about it all--about the gravity, I mean, of the situation, and perhaps
+in a few days I may come racing home again. Yes, I said 'home,' didn't
+I? Well, that shows you just how I am torn in two. But I can't help
+going."
+
+Hermann's hand remained on his shoulder gently patting it. To Michael
+the world, life, the whole spirit of things had suddenly grown sinister,
+of the quality of nightmare. It was true that all the ground of this
+ominous depression which had darkened round him, was conjectural and
+speculative, that diplomacy, backed by the horror of war which surely
+all civilised nations and responsible govermnents must share, had, so
+far from saying its last, not yet said its first word; that the wits of
+all the Cabinets of Europe were at this moment only just beginning to
+stir themselves so as to secure a peaceful solution; but, in spite
+of this, the darkness and the nightmare grew in intensity. But as to
+Hermann's determination to go to Germany, which made this so terribly
+real, since it was beginning to enter into practical everyday life,
+he had neither means nor indeed desire to combat it. He saw perfectly
+clearly that Hermann must go.
+
+"I don't want to dissuade you," he said, "not only because it would be
+useless, but because I am with you. You couldn't do otherwise, Hermann."
+
+"I don't see that I could. Sylvia agrees too."
+
+A terrible conjecture flashed through Michael's mind.
+
+"And she?" he asked.
+
+"She can't leave my mother, of course," said Hermann, "and, after all,
+I may be on a wild goose chase. But I can't risk being unable to get to
+Germany, if--if the worst happens."
+
+The ghost of a smile played round his mouth for a moment.
+
+"And I'm not sure that she could leave you, Mike," he added.
+
+Somehow this, though it gave Michael a moment of intensest relief to
+know that Sylvia remained, made the shadow grow deeper, accentuated the
+lines of the storm which had begun to spread over the sky. He began
+to see as nightmare no longer, but as stern and possible realities,
+something of the unutterable woe, the divisions, the heart-breaks which
+menaced.
+
+"Hermann, what do you think will happen?" he said. "It is incredible,
+unfaceable--"
+
+The gentle patting on his shoulder, that suddenly and poignantly
+reminded him of when Sylvia's hand was there, ceased for a moment, and
+then was resumed.
+
+"Mike, old boy," said Hermann, "we've got to face the unfaceable, and
+believe that the incredible is possible. I may be all wrong about it,
+and, as I say, in a few days' time I may come racing back. But, on
+the other hand, this may be our last talk together, for I go off this
+afternoon. So let's face it."
+
+He paused a moment.
+
+"It may be that before long I shall be fighting for my Fatherland,"
+he said. "And if there is to be fighting, it may be that Germany will
+before long be fighting England. There I shall be on one side, and,
+since naturally you will go back into the Guards, you will be fighting
+on the other. I shall be doing my best to kill Englishmen, whom I love,
+and they will be doing their best to kill me and those of my blood.
+There's the horror of it, and it's that we must face. If we met in a
+bayonet charge, Mike, I should have to do my best to run you through,
+and yet I shouldn't love you one bit the less, and you must know that.
+Or, if you ran me through, I shall have to die loving you just the same
+as before, and hoping you would live happy, for ever and ever, as the
+story-books say, with Sylvia."
+
+"Hermann, don't go," said Michael suddenly.
+
+"Mike, you didn't mean that," he said.
+
+Michael looked at him for a moment in silence.
+
+"No, it is unsaid," he replied.
+
+Hermann looked round as the clock on the chimney-piece chimed.
+
+"I must be going," he said, "I needn't say anything to you about Sylvia,
+because all I could say is in your heart already. Well, we've met in
+this jolly world, Mike, and we've been great friends. Neither you nor I
+could find a greater friend than we've been to each other. I bless God
+for this last year. It's been the happiest in my life. Now what else is
+there? Your music: don't ever be lazy about your music. It's worth while
+taking all the pains you can about it. Lord! do you remember the evening
+when I first tried your Variations? . . . Let me play the last one now.
+I want something jubilant. Let's see, how does it go?"
+
+He held his hands, those long, slim-fingered hands, poised for a moment
+above the keys, then plunged into the glorious riot of the full chords
+and scales, till the room rang with it. The last chord he held for a
+moment, and then sprang up.
+
+"Ah, that's good," he said. "And now I'm going to say good-bye, and go
+without looking round."
+
+"But might I see you off this afternoon?" asked Michael.
+
+"No, please don't. Station partings are fussy and disagreeable. I want
+to say good-bye to you here in your quiet room, just as I shall say
+goodbye to Sylvia at home. Ah, Mike, yes, both hands and smiling. May
+God give us other meetings and talks and companionship and years of
+love, my best of friends. Good-bye."
+
+Then, as he had said, he walked to the door without looking round, and
+next moment it had closed behind him.
+
+
+Throughout the next week the tension of the situation grew ever greater,
+strained towards the snapping-point, while the little cloud, the man's
+hand, which had arisen above the eastern horizon grew and overspread the
+heavens in a pall that became ever more black and threatening. For a few
+days yet it seemed that perhaps even now the cataclysm might be averted,
+but gradually, in spite of all the efforts of diplomacy to loosen the
+knot, it became clear that the ends of the cord were held in hands that
+did not mean to release their hold till it was pulled tight. Servia
+yielded to such demands as it was possible for her to grant as an
+independent State; but the inflexible fingers never abated one jot
+of their strangling pressure. She appealed to Russia, and Russia's
+remonstrance fell on deaf ears, or, rather, on ears that had determined
+not to hear. From London and Paris came proposals for conference, for
+arbitration, with welcome for any suggestion from the other side which
+might lead to a peaceful solution of the disputed demands, already
+recognised by Europe as a firebrand wantonly flung into the midst
+of dangerous and inflammable material. Over that burning firebrand,
+preventing and warding off all the eager hands that were stretched to
+put it out, stood the figure of the nation at whose bidding it had been
+flung there.
+
+Gradually, out of the thunder-clouds and gathering darkness, vaguely at
+first and then in definite and menacing outline, emerged the inexorable,
+flint-like face of Germany, whose figure was clad in the shining armour
+so well known in the flamboyant utterances of her War Lord, which had
+been treated hitherto as mere irresponsible utterances to be greeted
+with a laugh and a shrugged shoulder. Deep and patient she had always
+been, and now she believed that the time had come for her patience to
+do its perfect work. She had bided long for the time when she could
+best fling that lighted brand into the midst of civilisation, and she
+believed she had calculated well. She cared nothing for Servia nor for
+her ally. On both her frontiers she was ready, and now on the East
+she heeded not the remonstrance of Russia, nor her sincere and cordial
+invitation to friendly discussion. She but waited for the step that she
+had made inevitable, and on the first sign of Russian mobilisation she,
+with her mobilisation ready to be completed in a few days, peremptorily
+demanded that it should cease. On the Western frontier behind the
+Rhine she was ready also; her armies were prepared, cannon fodder in
+uncountable store of shells and cartridges was prepared, and in endless
+battalions of men, waiting to be discharged in one bull-like rush, to
+overrun France, and holding the French armies, shattered and dispersed,
+with a mere handful of her troops, to hurl the rest at Russia.
+
+The whole campaign was mathematically thought out. In a few months at
+the outside France would be lying trampled down and bleeding; Russia
+would be overrun; already she would be mistress of Europe, and prepared
+to attack the only country that stood between her and world-wide
+dominion, whose allies she would already have reduced to impotence.
+Here she staked on an uncertainty: she could not absolutely tell what
+England's attitude would be, but she had the strongest reason for hoping
+that, distracted by the imminence of civil strife, she would be unable
+to come to the help of her allies until the allies were past helping.
+
+For a moment only were seen those set stern features mad for war;
+then, with a snap, Germany shut down her visor and stood with sword
+unsheathed, waiting for the horror of the stupendous bloodshed which
+she had made inevitable. Her legions gathered on the Eastern front
+threatening war on Russia, and thus pulling France into the spreading
+conflagration and into the midst of the flame she stood ready to cast
+the torn-up fragments of the treaty that bound her to respect the
+neutrality of Belgium.
+
+All this week, while the flames of the flung fire-brand began to spread,
+the English public waited, incredulous of the inevitable. Michael, among
+them, found himself unable to believe even then that the bugles were
+already sounding, and that the piles of shells in their wicker-baskets
+were being loaded on to the military ammunition trains. But all the
+ordinary interests in life, all the things that busily and contentedly
+occupied his day, one only excepted, had become without savour. A dozen
+times in the morning he would sit down to his piano, only to find
+that he could not think it worth while to make his hands produce these
+meaningless tinkling sounds, and he would jump up to read the paper
+over again, or watch for fresh headlines to appear on the boards of
+news-vendors in the street, and send out for any fresh edition. Or he
+would walk round to his club and spend an hour reading the tape news and
+waiting for fresh slips to be pinned up. But, through all the nightmare
+of suspense and slowly-dying hope, Sylvia remained real, and after he
+had received his daily report from the establishment where his mother
+was, with the invariable message that there was no marked change of any
+kind, and that it was useless for him to think of coming to see her, he
+would go off to Maidstone Crescent and spend the greater part of the day
+with the girl.
+
+Once during this week he had received a note from Hermann, written at
+Munich, and on the same day she also had heard from him. He had gone
+back to his regiment, which was mobilised, as a private, and was very
+busy with drill and duties. Feeling in Germany, he said, was elated and
+triumphant: it was considered certain that England would stand aside, as
+the quarrel was none of hers, and the nation generally looked forward to
+a short and brilliant campaign, with the occupation of Paris to be made
+in September at the latest. But as a postscript in his note to Sylvia he
+had added:
+
+
+"You don't think there is the faintest chance of England coming in, do
+you? Please write to me fully, and get Mike to write. I have heard from
+neither of you, and as I am sure you must have written, I conclude
+that letters are stopped. I went to the theatre last night: there was a
+tremendous scene of patriotism. The people are war-mad."
+
+
+Since then nothing had been heard from him, and to-day, as Michael drove
+down to see Sylvia, he saw on the news-boards that Belgium had appealed
+to England against the violation of her territory by the German armies
+en route for France. Overtures had been made, asking for leave to pass
+through the neutral territory: these Belgium had rejected. This was
+given as official news. There came also the report that the Belgian
+remonstrances would be disregarded. Should she refuse passage to the
+German battalions, that could make no difference, since it was a matter
+of life and death to invade France by that route.
+
+Sylvia was out in the garden, where, hardly a month ago, they had spent
+that evening of silent peace, and she got up quickly as Michael came
+out.
+
+"Ah, my dear," she said, "I am glad you have come. I have got the
+horrors. You saw the latest news? Yes? And have you heard again from
+Hermann? No, I have not had a word."
+
+He kissed her and sat down.
+
+"No, I have not heard either," he said. "I expect he is right. Letters
+have been stopped."
+
+"And what do you think will be the result of Belgium's appeal?" she
+asked.
+
+"Who can tell? The Prime Minister is going to make a statement on
+Monday. There have been Cabinet meetings going on all day."
+
+She looked at him in silence.
+
+"And what do you think?" she asked.
+
+Quite suddenly, at her question, Michael found himself facing it, even
+as, when the final catastrophe was more remote, he had faced it with
+Falbe. All this week he knew he had been looking away from it, telling
+himself that it was incredible. Now he discovered that the one thing
+he dreaded more than that England should go to war, was that she
+should not. The consciousness of national honour, the thing which, with
+religion, Englishmen are most shy of speaking about, suddenly asserted
+itself, and he found on the moment that it was bigger than anything else
+in the world.
+
+"I think we shall go to war," he said. "I don't see personally how we
+can exist any more as a nation if we don't. We--we shall be damned if we
+don't, damned for ever and ever. It's moral extinction not to."
+
+She kindled at that.
+
+"Yes, I know," she said, "that's what I have been telling myself; but,
+oh, Mike, there's some dreadful cowardly part of me that won't listen
+when I think of Hermann, and . . ."
+
+She broke off a moment.
+
+"Michael," she said, "what will you do, if there is war?"
+
+He took up her hand that lay on the arm of his chair.
+
+"My darling, how can you ask?" he said. "Of course I shall go back to
+the army."
+
+For one moment she gave way.
+
+"No, no," she said. "You mustn't do that."
+
+And then suddenly she stopped.
+
+"My dear, I ask your pardon," she said. "Of course you will. I know
+that really. It's only this stupid cowardly part of me that--that
+interrupted. I am ashamed of it. I'm not as bad as that all through.
+I don't make excuses for myself, but, ah, Mike, when I think of what
+Germany is to me, and what Hermann is, and when I think what England is
+to me, and what you are! It shan't appear again, or if it does, you
+will make allowance, won't you? At least I can agree with you utterly,
+utterly. It's the flesh that's weak, or, rather, that is so strong. But
+I've got it under."
+
+She sat there in silence a little, mopping her eyes.
+
+"How I hate girls who cry!" she said. "It is so dreadfully feeble! Look,
+Mike, there are some roses on that tree from which I plucked the one you
+didn't think much of. Do you remember? You crushed it up in my hand and
+made it bleed."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"I have got some faint recollection of it," he said.
+
+Sylvia had got hold of her courage again.
+
+"Have you?" she asked. "What a wonderful memory. And that quiet evening
+out here next day. Perhaps you remember that too. That was real: that
+was a possession that we shan't ever part with."
+
+She pointed with her finger.
+
+"You and I sat there, and Hermann there," she said. "And mother
+sat--why, there she is. Mother darling, let's have tea out here, shall
+we? I will go and tell them."
+
+Mrs. Falbe had drifted out in her usual thistledown style, and shook
+hands with Michael.
+
+"What an upset it all is," she said, "with all these dreadful rumours
+going about that we shall be at war. I fell asleep, I think, a little
+after lunch, when I could not attend to my book for thinking about war."
+
+"Isn't the book interesting?" asked Michael.
+
+"No, not very. It is rather painful. I do not know why people write
+about painful things when there are so many pleasant and interesting
+things to write about. It seems to me very morbid."
+
+Michael heard something cried in the streets, and at the same moment he
+heard Sylvia's step quickly crossing the studio to the side door that
+opened on to it. In a minute she returned with a fresh edition of an
+evening paper.
+
+"They are preparing to cross the Rhine," she said.
+
+Mrs. Falbe gave a little sigh.
+
+"I don't know, I am sure," she said, "what you are in such a state
+about, Sylvia. Of course the Germans want to get into France the easiest
+and quickest way, at least I'm sure I should. It is very foolish of
+Belgium not to give them leave, as they are so much the strongest."
+
+"Mother darling, you don't understand one syllable about it," said
+Sylvia.
+
+"Very likely not, dear, but I am very glad we are an island, and that
+nobody can come marching here. But it is all a dreadful upset, Lord--I
+mean Michael, what with Hermann in Germany, and the concert tour
+abandoned. Still, if everything is quiet again by the middle of October,
+as I daresay it will be, it might come off after all. He will be on the
+spot, and you and Michael can join him, though I'm not quite sure if
+that would be proper. But we might arrange something: he might meet you
+at Ostend."
+
+"I'm afraid it doesn't look very likely," remarked Michael mildly.
+
+"Oh, and are you pessimistic too, like Sylvia? Pray don't be
+pessimistic. There is a dreadful pessimist in my book, who always thinks
+the worst is going to happen."
+
+"And does it?" asked Michael.
+
+"As far as I have got, it does, which makes it all the worse. Of course
+I am very anxious about Hermann, but I feel sure he will come back
+safe to us. I daresay France will give in when she sees Germany is in
+earnest."
+
+Mrs. Falbe pulled the shattered remnants of her mind together. In her
+heart of hearts she knew she did not care one atom what might happen to
+armies and navies and nations, provided only that she had a quantity
+of novels to read, and meals at regular hours. The fact of being on an
+island was an immense consolation to her, since it was quite certain
+that, whatever happened, German armies (or French or Soudanese, for that
+matter) could not march here and enter her sitting-room and take her
+books away from her. For years past she had asked nothing more of the
+world than that she should be comfortable in it, and it really seemed
+not an unreasonable request, considering at how small an outlay of money
+all the comfort she wanted could be secured to her. The thought of war
+had upset her a good deal already: she had been unable to attend to her
+book when she awoke from her after-lunch nap; and now, when she hoped to
+have her tea in peace, and find her attention restored by it, she found
+the general atmosphere of her two companions vaguely disquieting. She
+became a little more loquacious than usual, with the idea of talking
+herself back into a tranquil frame of mind, and reassuring to herself
+the promise of a peaceful future.
+
+"Such a blessing we have a good fleet," she said. "That will make us
+safe, won't it? I declare I almost hate the Germans, though my dear
+husband was one himself, for making such a disturbance. The papers all
+say it is Germany's fault, so I suppose it must be. The papers
+know better than anybody, don't they, because they have foreign
+correspondents. That must be a great expense!"
+
+Sylvia felt she could not endure this any longer. It was like having a
+raw wound stroked. . . .
+
+"Mother, you don't understand," she said. "You don't appreciate what is
+happening. In a day or two England will be at war with Germany."
+
+Mrs. Falbe's book had slipped from her knee. She picked it up and
+flapped the cover once or twice to get rid of dust that might have
+settled there.
+
+"But what then?" she said. "It is very dreadful, no doubt, to think
+of dear Hermann being with the German army, but we are getting used to
+that, are we not? Besides, he told me it was his duty to go. I do not
+think for a moment that France will be able to stand against Germany.
+Germany will be in Paris in no time, and I daresay Hermann's next letter
+will be to say that he has been walking down the boulevards. Of course
+war is very dreadful, I know that. And then Germany will be at war with
+Russia, too, but she will have Austria to help her. And as for Germany
+being at war with England, that does not make me nervous. Think of our
+fleet, and how safe we feel with that! I see that we have twice as many
+boats as the Germans. With two to one we must win, and they won't be
+able to send any of their armies here. I feel quite comfortable again
+now that I have talked it over."
+
+Sylvia caught Michael's eye for a moment over the tea-urn. She felt he
+acquiesced in what she was intending to say.
+
+"That is good, then," she said. "I am glad you feel comfortable about
+it, mother dear. Now, will you read your book out here? Why not, if I
+fetch you a shawl in case you feel cold?"
+
+Mrs. Falbe turned a questioning eye to the motionless trees and the
+unclouded sky.
+
+"I don't think I shall even want a shawl, dear," she said. "Listen, how
+the newsboys are calling! is it something fresh, do you think?"
+
+A moment's listening attention was sufficient to make it known that
+the news shouted outside was concerned only with the result of a county
+cricket match, and Michael, as well as Sylvia, was conscious of a
+certain relief to know that at the immediate present there was no fresh
+clang of the bell that was beating out the seconds of peace that still
+remained. Just for now, for this hour on Saturday afternoon, there was
+a respite: no new link was forged in the intolerable sequence of
+events. But, even as he drew breath in that knowledge, there came
+the counter-stroke in the sense that those whose business it was to
+disseminate the news that would cause their papers to sell, had just a
+cricket match to advertise their wares. Now, when the country and
+when Europe were on the brink of a bloodier war than all the annals of
+history contained, they, who presumably knew what the public desired
+to be informed on, thought that the news which would sell best was that
+concerned with wooden bats and leather balls, and strong young men
+in flannels. Michael had heard with a sort of tender incredulity Mrs.
+Falbe's optimistic reflections, and had been more than content to let
+her rest secure in them; but was the country, the heart of England, like
+her? Did it care more for cricket matches, as she for her book, than for
+the maintenance of the nation's honour, whatever that championship might
+cost? . . . And the cry went on past the garden-walk. "Fine innings by
+Horsfield! Result of the Oval match!"
+
+And yet he had just had his tea as usual, and eaten a slice of cake, and
+was now smoking a cigarette. It was natural to do that, not to make a
+fuss and refuse food and drink, and it was natural that people should
+still be interested in cricket. And at the moment his attitude towards
+Mrs. Falbe changed. Instead of pity and irritation at her normality, he
+was suddenly taken with a sense of gratitude to her. It was restful to
+suspense and jangled nerves to see someone who went on as usual. The sun
+shone, the leaves of the plane-trees did not wither, Mrs. Falbe read
+her book, the evening paper was full of cricket news. . . . And then the
+reaction from that seized him again. Supposing all the nation was like
+that. Supposing nobody cared. . . . And the tension of suspense strained
+more tightly than ever.
+
+For the next forty-eight hours, while day and night the telegraph wires
+of Europe tingled with momentous questions and grave replies, while
+Ministers and Ambassadors met and parted and met again, rumours
+flew this way and that like flocks of wild-fowl driven backwards and
+forwards, settling for a moment with a stir and splash, and then with
+rush of wings speeding back and on again. A huge coal strike in the
+northern counties, fostered and financed by German gold, was supposed to
+be imminent, and this would put out of the country's power the ability
+to interfere. The Irish Home Rule party, under the same suasion, was
+said to have refused to call a truce. A letter had been received in
+high quarters from the German Emperor avowing his fixed determination to
+preserve peace, and this was honey to Lord Ashbridge. Then in turn each
+of these was contradicted. All thought of the coal strike in this crisis
+of national affairs was abandoned; the Irish party, as well as the
+Conservatives, were of one mind in backing up the Government, no matter
+what postponement of questions that were vital a month ago, their
+cohesion entailed; the Emperor had written no letter at all. But through
+the nebulous mists of hearsay, there fell solid the first drops of the
+imminent storm. Even before Michael had left Sylvia that afternoon,
+Germany had declared war on Russia, on Sunday Belgium received a Note
+from Berlin definitely stating that should their Government not grant
+the passage to the German battalions, a way should be forced for them.
+On Monday, finally, Germany declared war on France also.
+
+The country held its breath in suspense at what the decision of the
+Government, which should be announced that afternoon, should be. One
+fact only was publicly known, and that was that the English fleet, only
+lately dismissed from its manoeuvres and naval review, had vanished.
+There were guard ships, old cruisers and what not, at certain ports,
+torpedo-boats roamed the horizons of Deal and Portsmouth, but the great
+fleet, the swift forts of sea-power, had gone, disappearing no one knew
+where, into the fine weather haze that brooded over the midsummer sea.
+There perhaps was an indication of what the decision would be, yet there
+was no certainty. At home there was official silence, and from abroad,
+apart from the three vital facts, came but the quacking of rumour,
+report after report, each contradicting the other.
+
+Then suddenly came certainty, a rainbow set in the intolerable cloud. On
+Monday afternoon, when the House of Commons met, all parties were known
+to have sunk their private differences and to be agreed on one point
+that should take precedence of all other questions. Germany should not,
+with England's consent, violate the neutrality of Belgium. As far as
+England was concerned, all negotiations were at an end, diplomacy had
+said its last word, and Germany was given twenty-four hours in which to
+reply. Should a satisfactory answer not be forthcoming, England would
+uphold the neutrality she with others had sworn to respect by force
+of arms. And at that one immense sigh of relief went up from the whole
+country. Whatever now might happen, in whatever horrors of long-drawn
+and bloody war the nation might be involved, the nightmare of possible
+neutrality, of England's repudiating the debt of honour, was removed.
+The one thing worse than war need no longer be dreaded, and for the
+moment the future, hideous and heart-rending though it would surely be,
+smiled like a land of promise.
+
+
+Michael woke on the morning of Tuesday, the fourth of August, with the
+feeling of something having suddenly roused him, and in a few seconds he
+knew that this was so, for the telephone bell in the room next door sent
+out another summons. He got straight out of bed and went to it, with a
+hundred vague shadows of expectation crossing his mind. Then he learned
+that his mother was gravely ill, and that he was wanted at once. And in
+less than half an hour he was on his way, driving swiftly through the
+serene warmth of the early morning to the private asylum where she had
+been removed after her sudden homicidal outburst in March.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Michael was sitting that same afternoon by his mother's bedside. He
+had learned the little there was to be told him on his arrival in the
+morning; how that half an hour before he had been summoned, she had had
+an attack of heart failure, and since then, after recovering from the
+acute and immediate danger, she had lain there all day with closed eyes
+in a state of but semi-conscious exhaustion. Once or twice only, and
+that but for a moment she had shown signs of increasing vitality, and
+then sank back into this stupor again. But in those rare short intervals
+she had opened her eyes, and had seemed to see and recognise him, and
+Michael thought that once she had smiled at him. But at present she had
+spoken no word. All the morning Lord Ashbridge had waited there too, but
+since there was no change he had gone away, saying that he would return
+again later, and asking to be telephoned for if his wife regained
+consciousness. So, but for the nurse and the occasional visits of the
+doctor, Michael was alone with his mother.
+
+In this long period of inactive waiting, when there was nothing to be
+done, Michael did not seem to himself to be feeling very vividly, and
+but for one desire, namely, that before the end his mother would come
+back to him, even if only for a moment, his mind felt drugged and
+stupefied. Sometimes for a little it would sluggishly turn over thoughts
+about his father, wondering with a sort of blunt, remote contempt how it
+was possible for him not to be here too; but, except for the one great
+longing that his mother should cleave to him once more in conscious
+mind, he observed rather than felt. The thought of Sylvia even was dim.
+He knew that she was somewhere in the world, but she had become for the
+present like some picture painted in his mind, without reality. Dim,
+too, was the tension of those last days. Somewhere in Europe was a
+country called Germany, where was his best friend, drilling in the ranks
+to which he had returned, or perhaps already on his way to bloodier
+battlefields than the world had ever dreamed of; and somewhere set in
+the seas was Germany's arch-foe, who already stood in her path with open
+cannon mouths pointing. But all this had no real connection with him.
+From the moment when he had come into this quiet, orderly room and saw
+his mother lying on the bed, nothing beyond those four walls really
+concerned him.
+
+But though the emotional side of his mind lay drugged and insensitive
+to anything outside, he found himself observing the details of the room
+where he waited with a curious vividness. There was a big window opening
+down to the ground in the manner of a door on to the garden outside,
+where a smooth lawn, set with croquet hoops and edged with bright
+flower-beds, dozed in the haze of the August heat. Beyond was a row
+of tall elms, against which a copper beech glowed metallically, and
+somewhere out of sight a mowing-machine was being used, for Michael
+heard the click of its cropping journey, growing fainter as it receded,
+followed by the pause as it turned, and its gradual crescendo as it
+approached again. Otherwise everything outside was strangely silent; as
+the hot hours of midday and early afternoon went by there was no note of
+bird-music, nor any sound of wind in the elm-tops. Just a little breeze
+stirred from time to time, enough to make the slats of the half-drawn
+Venetian blind rattle faintly. Earlier in the day there had come in from
+the window the smell of dew-damp earth, but now that had been sucked up
+by the sun.
+
+Close beside the window, with her back to the light and facing the bed,
+which projected from one of the side walls out into the room, sat Lady
+Ashbridge's nurse. She was reading, and the rustle of the turned page
+was regular; but regular and constant also were her glances towards the
+bed where her patient lay. At intervals she put down her book, marking
+the place with a slip of paper, and came to watch by the bed for a
+moment, looking at Lady Ashbridge's face and listening to her breathing.
+Her eye met Michael's always as she did this, and in answer to his
+mute question, each time she gave him a little head-shake, or perhaps a
+whispered word or two, that told him there was no change. Opposite the
+bed was the empty fireplace, and at the foot of it a table, on which
+stood a vase of roses. Michael was conscious of the scent of these every
+now and then, and at intervals of the faint, rather sickly smell of
+ether. A Japan screen, ornamented with storks in gold thread, stood
+near the door and half-concealed the washing-stand. There was a chest
+of drawers on one side of the fireplace, a wardrobe with a looking-glass
+door on the other, a dressing-table to one side of the window, a few
+prints on the plain blue walls, and a dark blue drugget carpet on
+the floor; and all these ordinary appurtenances of a bedroom etched
+themselves into Michael's mind, biting their way into it by the acid of
+his own suspense.
+
+Finally there was the bed where his mother lay. The coverlet of blue
+silk upon it he knew was somehow familiar to him, and after fitful
+gropings in his mind to establish the association, he remembered that it
+had been on the bed in her room in Curzon Street, and supposed that it
+had been brought here with others of her personal belongings. A little
+core of light, focused on one of the brass balls at the head of the bed,
+caught his eye, and he saw that the sun, beginning to decline, came in
+under the Venetian blind. The nurse, sitting in the window, noticed
+this also, and lowered it. The thought of Sylvia crossed his brain for
+a moment; then he thought of his father; but every train of reflection
+dissolved almost as soon as it was formed, and he came back again and
+again to his mother's face.
+
+It was perfectly peaceful and strangely young-looking, as if the cool,
+soothing hand of death, which presently would quiet all trouble for
+her, had been already at work there erasing the marks that the years had
+graven upon it. And yet it was not so much young as ageless; it seemed
+to have passed beyond the register and limitations of time. Sometimes
+for a moment it was like the face of a stranger, and then suddenly it
+would become beloved and familiar again. It was just so she had looked
+when she came so timidly into his room one night at Ashbridge, asking
+him if it would be troublesome to him if she sat and talked with him for
+a little. The mouth was a little parted for her slow, even breathing;
+the corners of it smiled; and yet he was not sure if they smiled. It
+was hard to tell, for she lay there quite flat, without pillows, and he
+looked at her from an unusual angle. Sometimes he felt as if he had been
+sitting there watching for uncounted years; and then again the hours
+that he had been here appeared to have lasted but for a moment, as if he
+had but looked once at her.
+
+As the day declined the breeze of evening awoke, rattling the blind. By
+now the sun had swung farther west, and the nurse pulled the blind up.
+Outside in the bushes in the garden the call of birds to each other had
+begun, and a thrush came close to the window and sang a liquid
+phrase, and then repeated it. Michael glanced there and saw the bird,
+speckle-breasted, with throat that throbbed with the notes; and then,
+looking back to the bed, he saw that his mother's eyes were open.
+
+She looked vaguely about the room for a moment, as if she had awoke from
+some deep sleep and found herself in an unfamiliar place. Then, turning
+her head slightly, she saw him, and there was no longer any question
+as to whether her mouth smiled, for all her face was flooded with deep,
+serene joy.
+
+He bent towards her and her lips parted.
+
+"Michael, my dear," she said gently.
+
+Michael heard the rustle of the nurse's dress as she got up and came to
+the bedside. He slipped from his chair on to his knees, so that his face
+was near his mother's. He felt in his heart that the moment he had so
+longed for was to be granted him, that she had come back to him, not
+only as he had known her during the weeks that they had lived alone
+together, when his presence made her so content, but in a manner
+infinitely more real and more embracing.
+
+"Have you been sitting here all the time while I slept, dear?" she
+asked. "Have you been waiting for me to come back to you?"
+
+"Yes, and you have come," he said.
+
+She looked at him, and the mother-love, which before had been veiled and
+clouded, came out with all the tender radiance of evening sun, with the
+clear shining after rain.
+
+"I knew you wouldn't fail me, my darling," she said. "You were so
+patient with me in the trouble I have been through. It was a nightmare,
+but it has gone."
+
+Michael bent forward and kissed her.
+
+"Yes, mother," he said, "it has all gone."
+
+She was silent a moment.
+
+"Is your father here?" she said.
+
+"No; but he will come at once, if you would like to see him."
+
+"Yes, send for him, dear, if it would not vex him to come," she said;
+"or get somebody else to send; I don't want you to leave me."
+
+"I'm not going to," said he.
+
+The nurse went to the door, gave some message, and presently returned to
+the other side of the bed. Then Lady Ashbridge spoke again.
+
+"Is this death?" she asked.
+
+Michael raised his eyes to the figure standing by the bed. She nodded to
+him.
+
+He bent forward again.
+
+"Yes, dear mother," he said.
+
+For a moment her eyes dilated, then grew quiet again, and the smile
+returned to her mouth.
+
+"I'm not frightened, Michael," she said, "with you there. It isn't
+lonely or terrible."
+
+She raised her head.
+
+"My son!" she said in a voice loud and triumphant. Then her head fell
+back again, and she lay with face close to his, and her eyelids quivered
+and shut. Her breath came slow and regular, as if she slept. Then he
+heard that she missed a breath, and soon after another. Then, without
+struggle at all, her breathing ceased. . . . And outside on the lawn
+close by the open window the thrush still sang.
+
+
+It was an hour later when Michael left, having waited for his father's
+arrival, and drove to town through the clear, falling dusk. He was
+conscious of no feeling of grief at all, only of a complete pervading
+happiness. He could not have imagined so perfect a close, nor could he
+have desired anything different from that imperishable moment when his
+mother, all trouble past, had come back to him in the serene calm of
+love. . . .
+
+As he entered London he saw the newsboards all placarded with one fact:
+England had declared war on Germany.
+
+
+He went, not to his own flat, but straight to Maidstone Crescent. With
+those few minutes in which his mother had known him, the stupor that had
+beset his emotions all day passed off, and he felt himself longing, as
+he had never longed before, for Sylvia's presence. Long ago he had given
+her all that he knew of as himself; now there was a fresh gift. He had
+to give her all that those moments had taught him. Even as already they
+were knitted into him, made part of him, so must they be to her. . . .
+And when they had shared that, when, like water gushing from a spring
+she flooded him, there was that other news which he had seen on the
+newsboards that they had to share together.
+
+Sylvia had been alone all day with her mother; but, before Michael
+arrived, Mrs. Falbe (after a few more encouraging remarks about war in
+general, to the effect that Germany would soon beat France, and what a
+blessing it was that England was an island) had taken her book up to her
+room, and Sylvia was sitting alone in the deep dusk of the evening. She
+did not even trouble to turn on the light, for she felt unable to apply
+herself to any practical task, and she could think and take hold of
+herself better in the dark. All day she had longed for Michael to come
+to her, though she had not cared to see anybody else, and several times
+she had rung him up, only to find that he was still out, supposedly
+with his mother, for he had been summoned to her early that morning, and
+since then no news had come of him. Just before dinner had arrived the
+announcement of the declaration of war, and Sylvia sat now trying to
+find some escape from the encompassing nightmare. She felt confused
+and distracted with it; she could not think consecutively, but
+only contemplate shudderingly the series of pictures that presented
+themselves to her mind. Somewhere now, in the hosts of the Fatherland,
+which was hers also, was Hermann, the brother who was part of herself.
+When she thought of him, she seemed to be with him, to see the glint
+of his rifle, to feel her heart on his heart, big with passionate
+patriotism. She had no doubt that patriotism formed the essence of his
+consciousness, and yet by now probably he knew that the land beloved by
+him, where he had made his home, was at war with his own. She could not
+but know how often his thoughts dwelled here in the dark quiet studio
+where she sat, and where so many days of happiness had been passed. She
+knew what she was to him, she and her mother and Michael, and the hosts
+of friends in this land which had become his foe. Would he have gone,
+she asked herself, if he had guessed that there would be war between the
+two? She thought he would, though she knew that for herself she would
+have made it as hard as possible for him to do so. She would have used
+every argument she could think of to dissuade him, and yet she felt that
+her entreaties would have beaten in vain against the granite of his and
+her nationality. Dimly she had foreseen this contingency when, a few
+days ago, she had asked Michael what he would do if England went to war,
+and now that contingency was realised, and Hermann was even now perhaps
+on his way to violate the neutrality of the country for the sake of
+which England had gone to war. On the other side was Michael, into whose
+keeping she had given herself and her love, and on which side was she?
+It was then that the nightmare came close to her; she could not tell,
+she was utterly unable to decide. Her heart was Michael's; her heart
+was her brother's also. The one personified Germany for her, the other
+England. It was as if she saw Hermann and Michael with bayonet and rifle
+stalking each other across some land of sand-dunes and hollows, creeping
+closer to each other, always closer. She felt as if she would have
+gladly given herself over to an eternity of torment, if only they could
+have had one hour more, all three of them, together here, as on that
+night of stars and peace when first there came the news which for the
+moment had disquieted Hermann.
+
+She longed as with thirst for Michael to come, and as her solitude
+became more and more intolerable, a hundred hideous fancies obsessed
+her. What if some accident had happened to Michael, or what, if in this
+tremendous breaking of ties that the war entailed, he felt that he could
+not see her? She knew that was an impossibility; but the whole world had
+become impossible. And there was no escape. Somehow she had to adjust
+herself to the unthinkable; somehow her relations both with Hermann and
+Michael had to remain absolutely unshaken. Even that was not enough:
+they had to be strengthened, made impregnable.
+
+Then came a knock on the side door of the studio that led into the
+street: Michael often came that way without passing through the house,
+and with a sense of relief she ran to it and unlocked it. And even as
+he stepped in, before any word of greeting had been exchanged, she flung
+herself on him, with fingers eager for the touch of his solidity. . . .
+
+"Oh, my dear," she said. "I have longed for you, just longed for you.
+I never wanted you so much. I have been sitting in the dark
+desolate--desolate. And oh! my darling, what a beast I am to think of
+nothing but myself. I am ashamed. What of your mother, Michael?"
+
+She turned on the light as they walked back across the studio, and
+Michael saw that her eyes, which were a little dazzled by the change
+from the dark into the light, were dim with unshed tears, and her hands
+clung to him as never before had they clung. She needed him now with
+that imperative need which in trouble can only turn to love for comfort.
+She wanted that only; the fact of him with her, in this land in which
+she had suddenly become an alien, an enemy, though all her friends
+except Hermann were here. And instantaneously, as a baby at the breast,
+she found that all his strength and serenity were hers.
+
+They sat down on the sofa by the piano, side by side, with hands
+intertwined before Michael answered. He looked up at her as he spoke,
+and in his eyes was the quiet of love and death.
+
+"My mother died an hour ago," he said. "I was with her, and as I had
+longed might happen, she came back to me before she died. For two or
+three minutes she was herself. And then she said to me, 'My son,' and
+soon she ceased breathing."
+
+"Oh, Michael," she said, and for a little while there was silence, and
+in turn it was her presence that he clung to. Presently he spoke again.
+
+"Sylvia, I'm so frightfully hungry," he said. "I don't think I've eaten
+anything since breakfast. May we go and forage?"
+
+"Oh, you poor thing!" she cried. "Yes, let's go and see what there is."
+
+Instantly she busied herself.
+
+"Hermann left the cellar key on the chimney-piece, Michael," she said.
+"Get some wine out, dear. Mother and I don't drink any. And there's some
+ham, I know. While you are getting wine, I'll broil some. And there
+were some strawberries. I shall have some supper with you. What a good
+thought! And you must be famished."
+
+As they ate they talked perfectly simply and naturally of the hundred
+associations which this studio meal at the end of the evening called
+up concerning the Sunday night parties. There was an occasion on which
+Hermann tried to recollect how to mull beer, with results that smelled
+like a brickfield; there was another when a poached egg had fallen,
+exploding softly as it fell into the piano. There was the occasion,
+the first on which Michael had been present, when two eminent actors
+imitated each other; another when Francis came and made himself so
+immensely agreeable. It was after that one that Sylvia and Hermann had
+sat and talked in front of the stove, discussing, as Sylvia laughed to
+remember, what she would say when Michael proposed to her. Then had come
+the break in Michael's attendances and, as Sylvia allowed, a certain
+falling-off in gaiety.
+
+"But it was really Hermann and I who made you gay originally," she said.
+"We take a wonderful deal of credit for that."
+
+All this was as completely natural for them as was the impromptu meal,
+and soon without effort Michael spoke of his mother again, and presently
+afterwards of the news of war. But with him by her side Sylvia found
+her courage come back to her; the news itself, all that it certainly
+implied, and all the horror that it held, no longer filled her with
+the sense that it was impossibly terrible. Michael did not diminish the
+awfulness of it, but he gave her the power of looking out bravely at it.
+Nor did he shrink from speaking of all that had been to her so grim a
+nightmare.
+
+"You haven't heard from Hermann?" he asked.
+
+"No. And I suppose we can't hear now. He is with his regiment, that's
+all; nor shall we hear of him till there is peace again."
+
+She came a little closer to him.
+
+"Michael, I have to face it, that I may never see Hermann again," she
+said. "Mother doesn't fear it, you know. She--the darling--she lives
+in a sort of dream. I don't want her to wake from it. But how can I get
+accustomed to the thought that perhaps I shan't see Hermann again? I
+must get accustomed to it: I've got to live with it, and not quarrel
+with it."
+
+He took up her hand, enclosing it in his.
+
+"But, one doesn't quarrel with the big things of life," he said. "Isn't
+it so? We haven't any quarrel with things like death and duty. Dear me,
+I'm afraid I'm preaching."
+
+"Preach, then," she said.
+
+"Well, it's just that. We don't quarrel with them: they manage
+themselves. Hermann's going managed itself. It had to be."
+
+Her voice quivered as she spoke now.
+
+"Are you going?" she asked. "Will that have to be?"
+
+Michael looked at her a moment with infinite tenderness.
+
+"Oh, my dear, of course it will," he said. "Of course, one doesn't know
+yet what the War Office will do about the Army. I suppose it's possible
+that they will send troops to France. All that concerns me is that I
+shall rejoin again if they call up the Reserves."
+
+"And they will?"
+
+"Yes, I should think that is inevitable. And you know there's something
+big about it. I'm not warlike, you know, but I could not fail to be a
+soldier under these new conditions, any more than I could continue being
+a soldier when all it meant was to be ornamental. Hermann in bursts of
+pride and patriotism used to call us toy-soldiers. But he's wrong now;
+we're not going to be toy-soldiers any more."
+
+She did not answer him, but he felt her hand press close in the palm of
+his.
+
+"I can't tell you how I dreaded we shouldn't go to war," he said. "That
+has been a nightmare, if you like. It would have been the end of us if
+we had stood aside and seen Germany violate a solemn treaty."
+
+Even with Michael close to her, the call of her blood made itself
+audible to Sylvia. Instinctively she withdrew her hand from his.
+
+"Ah, you don't understand Germany at all," she said. "Hermann always
+felt that too. He told me he felt he was talking gibberish to you when
+he spoke of it. It is clearly life and death to Germany to move against
+France as quickly as possible."
+
+"But there's a direct frontier between the two," said he.
+
+"No doubt, but an impossible one."
+
+Michael frowned, drawing his big eyebrows together.
+
+"But nothing can justify the violation of a national oath," he said.
+"That's the basis of civilisation, a thing like that."
+
+"But if it's a necessity? If a nation's existence depends on it?" she
+asked. "Oh, Michael, I don't know! I don't know! For a little I am
+entirely English, and then something calls to me from beyond the Rhine!
+There's the hopelessness of it for me and such as me. You are English;
+there's no question about it for you. But for us! I love England: I
+needn't tell you that. But can one ever forget the land of one's birth?
+Can I help feeling the necessity Germany is under? I can't believe that
+she has wantonly provoked war with you."
+
+"But consider--" said he.
+
+She got up suddenly.
+
+"I can't argue about it," she said. "I am English and I am German. You
+must make the best of me as I am. But do be sorry for me, and never,
+never forget that I love you entirely. That's the root fact between us.
+I can't go deeper than that, because that reaches to the very bottom of
+my soul. Shall we leave it so, Michael, and not ever talk of it again?
+Wouldn't that be best?"
+
+There was no question of choice for Michael in accepting that appeal.
+He knew with the inmost fibre of his being that, Sylvia being Sylvia,
+nothing that she could say or do or feel could possibly part him from
+her. When he looked at it directly and simply like that, there was
+nothing that could blur the verity of it. But the truth of what she
+said, the reality of that call of the blood, seemed to cast a shadow
+over it. He knew beyond all other knowledge that it was there: only it
+looked out at him with a shadow, faint, but unmistakable, fallen
+across it. But the sense of that made him the more eagerly accept her
+suggestion.
+
+"Yes, darling, we'll never speak of it again," he said. "That would be
+much wisest."
+
+
+Lady Ashbridge's funeral took place three days afterwards, down in
+Suffolk, and those hours detached themselves in Michael's mind from all
+that had gone before, and all that might follow, like a little piece
+of blue sky in the midst of storm clouds. The limitations of man's
+consciousness, which forbid him to think poignantly about two things at
+once, hedged that day in with an impenetrable barrier, so that while it
+lasted, and afterwards for ever in memory, it was unflecked by trouble
+or anxiety, and hung between heaven and earth in a serenity of its own.
+
+The coffin lay that night in his mother's bedroom, which was next to
+Michael's, and when he went up to bed he found himself listening for
+any sound that came from there. It seemed but yesterday when he had gone
+rather early upstairs, and after sitting a minute or two in front of
+his fire, had heard that timid knock on the door, which had meant the
+opening of a mother's heart to him. He felt it would scarcely be strange
+if that knock came again, and if she entered once more to be with him.
+From the moment he came upstairs, the rest of the world was shut down
+to him; he entered his bedroom as if he entered a sanctuary that was
+scented with the incense of her love. He knew exactly how her knock had
+sounded when she came in here that night when first it burned for him:
+his ears were alert for it to come again. Once his blind tapped against
+the frame of his open window, and, though knowing it was that, he heard
+himself whisper--for she could hear his whisper--"Come in, mother," and
+sat up in his deep chair, looking towards the door. But only the blind
+tapped again, and outside in the moonlit dusk an owl hooted.
+
+He remembered she liked owls. Once, when they lived alone in Curzon
+Street, some noise outside reminded her of the owls that hooted at
+Ashbridge--she had imitated their note, saying it sounded like sleep.
+. . . She had sat in a chintz-covered chair close to him when at
+Christmas she paid him that visit, and now he again drew it close to his
+own, and laid his hand on its arm. Petsy II. had come in with her, and
+she had hoped that he would not annoy Michael.
+
+There were steps in the passage outside his room, and he heard a little
+shrill bark. He opened his door and found his mother's maid there,
+trying to entice Petsy away from the room next to his. The little dog
+was curled up against it, and now and then he turned round scratching at
+it, asking to enter. "He won't come away, my lord," said the maid; "he's
+gone back a dozen times to the door."
+
+Michael bent down.
+
+"Come, Petsy," he said, "come to bed in my room."
+
+The dog looked at him for a moment as if weighing his trustworthiness.
+Then he got up and, with grotesque Chinese high-stepping walk, came to
+him.
+
+"He'll be all right with me," he said to the maid.
+
+He took Petsy into his room next door, and laid him on the chair in
+which his mother had sat. The dog moved round in a circle once or twice,
+and then settled himself down to sleep. Michael went to bed also, and
+lay awake about a couple of minutes, not thinking, but only being, while
+the owls hooted outside.
+
+He awoke into complete consciousness, knowing that something had aroused
+him, even as three days ago when the telephone rang to summon him to his
+mother's deathbed. Then he did not know what had awakened him, but now
+he was sure that there had been a tapping on his door. And after he had
+sat up in bed completely awake, he heard Petsy give a little welcoming
+bark. Then came the noise of his small, soft tail beating against the
+cushion in the chair.
+
+Michael had no feeling of fright at all, only of longing for something
+that physically could not be. And longing, only longing, once more he
+said:
+
+"Come in, mother."
+
+He believed he heard the door whisper on the carpet, but he saw nothing.
+Only, the room was full of his mother's presence. It seemed to him that,
+in obedience to her, he lay down completely satisfied. . . . He felt no
+curiosity to see or hear more. She was there, and that was enough.
+
+He woke again a little after dawn. Petsy between the window and the door
+had jumped on to his bed to get out of the draught of the morning wind.
+For the door was opened.
+
+
+That morning the coffin was carried down the long winding path above the
+deep-water reach, where Michael and Francis at Christmas had heard the
+sound of stealthy rowing, and on to the boat that awaited it to ferry it
+across to the church. There was high tide, and, as they passed over the
+estuary, the stillness of supreme noon bore to them the tolling of the
+bell. The mourners from the house followed, just three of them, Lord
+Ashbridge, Michael, and Aunt Barbara, for the rest were to assemble at
+the church. But of all that, one moment stood out for Michael above all
+others, when, as they entered the graveyard, someone whom he could not
+see said: "I am the Resurrection and the Life," and he heard that his
+father, by whom he walked, suddenly caught his breath in a sob.
+
+All that day there persisted that sense of complete detachment from all
+but her whose body they had laid to rest on the windy hill overlooking
+the broad water. His father, Aunt Barbara, the cousins and relations who
+thronged the church were no more than inanimate shadows compared with
+her whose presence had come last night into his room, and had not left
+him since. The affairs of the world, drums and the torch of war, had
+passed for those hours from his knowledge, as at the centre of a cyclone
+there was a windless calm. To-morrow he knew he would pass out into
+the tumult again, and the minutes slipped like pearls from a string,
+dropping into the dim gulf where the tempest raged. . . .
+
+He went back to town next morning, after a short interview with his
+father, who was coming up later in the day, when he told him that he
+intended to go back to his regiment as soon as possible. But, knowing
+that he meant to go by the slow midday train, his father proposed to
+stop the express for him that went through a few minutes before. Michael
+could hardly believe his ears. . . .
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+It was but a day or two after the outbreak of the war that it was
+believed that an expeditionary force was to be sent to France, to help
+in arresting the Teutonic tide that was now breaking over Belgium; but
+no public and authoritative news came till after the first draft of the
+force had actually set foot on French soil. From the regiment of the
+Guards which Michael had rejoined, Francis was among the first batch of
+officers to go, and that evening Michael took down the news to Sylvia.
+Already stories of German barbarity were rife, of women violated, of
+defenceless civilians being shot down for no object except to terrorise,
+and to bring home to the Belgians the unwisdom of presuming to cross the
+will of the sovereign people. To-night, in the evening papers, there had
+been a fresh batch of these revolting stories, and when Michael entered
+the studio where Sylvia and her mother were sitting, he saw the girl let
+drop behind the sofa the paper she had been reading. He guessed what she
+must have found there, for he had already seen the paper himself, and
+her silence, her distraction, and the misery of her face confirmed his
+conjecture.
+
+"I've brought you a little news to-night," he said. "The first draft
+from the regiment went off to-day."
+
+Mrs. Falbe put down her book, marking the place.
+
+"Well, that does look like business, then," she said, "though I must say
+I should feel safer if they didn't send our soldiers away. Where have
+they gone to?"
+
+"Destination unknown," said Michael. "But it's France. My cousin has
+gone."
+
+"Francis?" asked Sylvia. "Oh, how wicked to send boys like that."
+
+Michael saw that her nerves were sharply on edge. She had given him no
+greeting, and now as he sat down she moved a little away from him. She
+seemed utterly unlike herself.
+
+"Mother has been told that every Englishman is as brave as two Germans,"
+she said. "She likes that."
+
+"Yes, dear," observed Mrs. Falbe placidly. "It makes one feel safer. I
+saw it in the paper, though; I read it."
+
+Sylvia turned on Michael.
+
+"Have you seen the evening paper?" she asked.
+
+Michael knew what was in her mind.
+
+"I just looked at it," he said. "There didn't seem to be much news."
+
+"No, only reports, rumours, lies," said Sylvia.
+
+Mrs. Falbe got up. It was her habit to leave the two alone together,
+since she was sure they preferred that; incidentally, also, she got on
+better with her book, for she found conversation rather distracting. But
+to-night Sylvia stopped her.
+
+"Oh, don't go yet, mother," she said. "It is very early."
+
+It was clear that for some reason she did not want to be left alone with
+Michael, for never had she done this before. Nor did it avail anything
+now, for Mrs. Falbe, who was quite determined to pursue her reading
+without delay, moved towards the door.
+
+"But I am sure Michael wants to talk to you, dear," she said, "and you
+have not seen him all day. I think I shall go up to bed."
+
+Sylvia made no further effort to detain her, but when she had gone, the
+silence in which they had so often sat together had taken on a perfectly
+different quality.
+
+"And what have you been doing?" she said. "Tell me about your day. No,
+don't. I know it has all been concerned with war, and I don't want to
+hear about it."
+
+"I dined with Aunt Barbara," said Michael. "She sent you her love. She
+also wondered why you hadn't been to see her for so long."
+
+Sylvia gave a short laugh, which had no touch of merriment in it.
+
+"Did she really?" she asked. "I should have thought she could have
+guessed. She set every nerve in my body jangling last time I saw her by
+the way she talked about Germans. And then suddenly she pulled herself
+up and apologised, saying she had forgotten. That made it worse!
+Michael, when you are unhappy, kindness is even more intolerable than
+unkindness. I would sooner have Lady Barbara abusing my people than
+saying how sorry she is for me. Don't let's talk about it! Let's do
+something. Will you play, or shall I sing? Let's employ ourselves."
+
+Michael followed her lead.
+
+"Ah, do sing," he said. "It's weeks since I have heard you sing."
+
+She went quickly over to the bookcase of music by the piano.
+
+"Come, then, let's sing and forget," she said. "Hermann always said the
+artist was of no nationality. Let's begin quick. These are all German
+songs: don't let's have those. Ah, and these, too! What's to be done?
+All our songs seem to be German."
+
+Michael laughed.
+
+"But we've just settled that artists have no nationality, so I suppose
+art hasn't either," he said.
+
+Sylvia pulled herself together, conscious of a want of control, and laid
+her hand on Michael's shoulder.
+
+"Oh, Michael, what should I do without you?" she said. "And yet--well,
+let me sing."
+
+She had placed a volume of Schubert on the music-stand, and opening it
+at random he found "Du Bist die Ruhe." She sang the first verse, but in
+the middle of the second she stopped.
+
+"I can't," she said. "It's no use."
+
+He turned round to her.
+
+"Oh, I'm so sorry," he said. "But you know that."
+
+She moved away from him, and walked down to the empty fireplace.
+
+"I can't keep silence," she said, "though I know we settled not to talk
+of those things when necessarily we cannot feel absolutely at one. But,
+just before you came in, I was reading the evening paper. Michael, how
+can the English be so wicked as to print, and I suppose to believe,
+those awful things I find there? You told me you had glanced at it.
+Well, did you glance at the lies they tell about German atrocities?"
+
+"Yes, I saw them," said Michael. "But it's no use talking about them."
+
+"But aren't you indignant?" she said. "Doesn't your blood boil to read
+of such infamous falsehoods? You don't know Germans, but I do, and it is
+impossible that such things can have happened."
+
+Michael felt profoundly uncomfortable. Some of these stories which
+Sylvia called lies were vouched for, apparently, by respectable
+testimony.
+
+"Why talk about them?" he said. "I'm sure we were wise when we settled
+not to."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Well, I can't live up to that wisdom," she said. "When I think of this
+war day and night and night and day, how can I prevent talking to
+you about it? And those lies! Germans couldn't do such things. It's a
+campaign of hate against us, set up by the English Press."
+
+"I daresay the German Press is no better," said Michael.
+
+"If that is so, I should be just as indignant about the German Press,"
+said she. "But it is only your guess that it is so."
+
+Suddenly she stopped, and came a couple of steps nearer him.
+
+"Michael, it isn't possible that you believe those things of us?" she
+said.
+
+He got up.
+
+"Ah, do leave it alone, Sylvia," he said. "I know no more of the truth
+or falsity of it than you. I have seen just what you have seen in the
+papers."
+
+"You don't feel the impossibility of it, then?" she asked.
+
+"No, I don't. There seems to have been sworn testimony. War is a cruel
+thing; I hate it as much as you. When men are maddened with war, you
+can't tell what they would do. They are not the Germans you know, nor
+the Germans I know, who did such things--not the people I saw when I
+was with Hermann in Baireuth and Munich a year ago. They are no more the
+same than a drunken man is the same as that man when he is sober. They
+are two different people; drink has made them different. And war has
+done the same for Germany."
+
+He held out his hand to her. She moved a step back from him.
+
+"Then you think, I suppose, that Hermann may be concerned in those
+atrocities," she said.
+
+Michael looked at her in amazement.
+
+"You are talking sheer nonsense, Sylvia," he said.
+
+"Not at all. It is a logical inference, just an application of the
+principle you have stated."
+
+Michael's instinct was just to take her in his arms and make the
+final appeal, saying, "We love each other, that's all," but his reason
+prevented him. Sylvia had said a monstrous thing in cold blood, when she
+suggested that he thought Hermann might be concerned in these deeds, and
+in cold blood, not by appealing to her emotions, must she withdraw that.
+
+"I'm not going to argue about it," he said. "I want you to tell me at
+once that I am right, that it was sheer nonsense, to put no other name
+to it, when you suggested that I thought that of Hermann."
+
+"Oh, pray put another name to it," she said.
+
+"Very well. It was a wanton falsehood," said Michael, "and you know it."
+
+Truly this hellish nightmare of war and hate which had arisen brought
+with it a brood not less terrible. A day ago, an hour ago he would have
+merely laughed at the possibility of such a situation between Sylvia and
+himself. Yet here it was: they were in the middle of it now.
+
+She looked up at him flashing with indignation, and a retort as stinging
+as his rose to her lips. And then quite suddenly, all her anger went
+from her, as her, heart told her, in a voice that would not be silenced,
+the complete justice of what he had said, and the appeal that Michael
+refrained from making was made by her to herself. Remorse held her on
+its spikes for her abominable suggestion, and with it came a sense
+of utter desolation and misery, of hatred for herself in having thus
+quietly and deliberately said what she had said. She could not account
+for it, nor excuse herself on the plea that she had spoken in passion,
+for she had spoken, as he felt, in cold blood. Hence came the misery in
+the knowledge that she must have wounded Michael intolerably.
+
+Her lips so quivered that when she first tried to speak no words would
+come. That she was truly ashamed brought no relief, no ease to her
+surrender, for she knew that it was her real self who had spoken thus
+incredibly. But she could at least disown that part of her.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Michael," she said. "I was atrocious. Will you
+forgive me? Because I am so miserable."
+
+He had nothing but love for her, love and its kinsman pity.
+
+"Oh, my dear, fancy you asking that!" he said.
+
+Just for the moment of their reconciliation, it seemed to both that they
+came closer to each other than they had ever been before, and the chance
+of the need of any such another reconciliation was impossible to the
+verge of laughableness, so that before five minutes were past he could
+make the smile break through her tears at the absurdity of the moment
+that now seemed quite unreal. Yet that which was at the root of their
+temporary antagonism was not removed by the reconciliation; at most
+they had succeeded in cutting off the poisonous shoot that had suddenly
+sprouted from it. The truth of this in the days that followed was
+horribly demonstrated.
+
+It was not that they ever again came to the spoken bitterness of words,
+for the sharpness of them, once experienced, was shunned by each of
+them, but times without number they had to sheer off, and not approach
+the ground where these poisoned tendrils trailed. And in that sense of
+having to take care, to be watchful lest a chance word should bring the
+peril close to them, the atmosphere of complete ease and confidence,
+in which alone love can flourish, was tainted. Love was there, but its
+flowers could not expand, it could not grow in the midst of this bitter
+air. And what made the situation more and increasingly difficult was
+the fact that, next to their love for each other, the emotion that
+most filled the mind of each was this sense of race-antagonism. It was
+impossible that the news of the war should not be mentioned, for that
+would have created an intolerable unreality, and all that was in their
+power was to avoid all discussion, to suppress from speech all the
+feelings with which the news filled them. Every day, too, there came
+fresh stories of German abominations committed on the Belgians, and each
+knew that the other had seen them, and yet neither could mention them.
+For while Sylvia could not believe them, Michael could not help doing
+so, and thus there was no common ground on which they could speak of
+them. Often Mrs. Falbe, in whose blood, it would seem, no sense of
+race beat at all, would add to the embarrassment by childlike comments,
+saying at one time in reference to such things that she made a point of
+not believing all she saw in the newspapers, or at another ejaculating,
+"Well, the Germans do seem to have behaved very cruelly again!" But no
+emotion appeared to colour these speeches, while all the emotion of the
+world surged and bubbled behind the silence of the other two.
+
+Then followed the darkest days that England perhaps had ever known, when
+the German armies, having overcome the resistance of Belgium, suddenly
+swept forward again across France, pushing before them like the jetsam
+and flotsam on the rim of the advancing tide the allied armies. Often in
+these appalling weeks, Michael would hesitate as to whether he should go
+to see Sylvia or not, so unbearable seemed the fact that she did not and
+could not feel or understand what England was going through. So far
+from blaming her for it, he knew that it could not be otherwise, for her
+blood called to her, even as his to him, while somewhere in the onrush
+of those advancing and devouring waves was her brother, with whom, so it
+had often seemed to him, she was one soul. Thus, while in that his whole
+sympathy and whole comprehension of her love was with him, there was as
+well all that deep, silent English patriotism of which till now he had
+scarcely been conscious, praying with mute entreaty that disaster and
+destruction and defeat might overwhelm those advancing hordes. Once,
+when the anxiety and peril were at their height, he made up his mind not
+to see her that day, and spent the evening by himself. But later, when
+he was actually on his way to bed, he knew he could not keep away from
+her, and though it was already midnight, he drove down to Chelsea, and
+found her sitting up, waiting for the chance of his coming.
+
+For a moment, as she greeted him and he kissed her silently, they
+escaped from the encompassing horror.
+
+"Ah, you have come," she said. "I thought perhaps you might. I have
+wanted you dreadfully."
+
+The roar of artillery, the internecine strife were still. Just for a
+few seconds there was nothing in the world for him but her, nor for her
+anything but him.
+
+"I couldn't go to bed without just seeing you," he said. "I won't keep
+you up."
+
+They stood with hands clasped.
+
+"But if you hadn't come, Michael," she said, "I should have understood."
+
+And then the roar and the horror began again. Her words were the
+simplest, the most directly spoken to him, yet could not but evoke the
+spectres that for the moment had vanished. She had meant to let her
+love for him speak; it had spoken, and instantly through the momentary
+sunlight of it, there loomed the fierce and enormous shadow. It could
+not be banished from their most secret hearts; even when the doors
+were shut and they were alone together thus, it made its entrance,
+ghost-like, terrible, and all love's bolts and bars could not keep it
+out. Here was the tragedy of it, that they could not stand embraced with
+clasped hands and look at it together and so rob it of its terrors, for,
+at the sight of it, their hands were loosened from each other's, and in
+its presence they were forced to stand apart. In his heart, as surely
+as he knew her love, Michael knew that this great shadow under which
+England lay was shot with sunlight for Sylvia, that the anxiety, the
+awful suspense that made his fingers cold as he opened the daily papers,
+brought into it to her an echo of victorious music that beat to the
+tramp of advancing feet that marched ever forward leaving the glittering
+Rhine leagues upon leagues in their rear. The Bavarian corps in which
+Hermann served was known to be somewhere on the Western front, for
+the Emperor had addressed them ten days before on their departure from
+Munich, and Sylvia and Michael were both aware of that. But they
+who loved Hermann best could not speak of it to each other, and the
+knowledge of it had to be hidden in silence, as if it had been some
+guilty secret in which they were the terrified accomplices, instead of
+its being a bond of love which bound them both to Hermann.
+
+In addition to the national anxiety, there was the suspense of those
+whose sons and husbands and fathers were in the fighting line. Columns
+of casualty lists were published, and each name appearing there was a
+sword that pierced a home. One such list, published early in September,
+was seen by Michael as he drove down on Sunday morning to spend the rest
+of the day with Sylvia, and the first name that he read there was that
+of Francis. For a moment, as he remembered afterwards, the print had
+danced before his eyes, as if seen through the quiver of hot air. Then
+it settled down and he saw it clearly.
+
+He turned and drove back to his rooms in Half Moon Street, feeling that
+strange craving for loneliness that shuns any companionship. He must,
+for a little, sit alone with the fact, face it, adjust himself to it.
+Till that moment when the dancing print grew still again he had not, in
+all the anxiety and suspense of those days, thought of Francis's death
+as a possibility even. He had heard from him only two mornings before,
+in a letter thoroughly characteristic that saw, as Francis always saw,
+the pleasant and agreeable side of things. Washing, he had announced,
+was a delusion; after a week without it you began to wonder why you had
+ever made a habit of it. . . . They had had a lot of marching, always
+in the wrong direction, but everyone knew that would soon be over. . . .
+Wasn't London very beastly in August? . . . Would Michael see if he
+could get some proper cigarettes out to him? Here there was nothing but
+little black French affairs (and not many of them) which tied a knot in
+the throat of the smoker. . . . And now Francis, with all his gaiety
+and his affection, and his light pleasant dealings with life, lay dead
+somewhere on the sunny plains of France, killed in action by shell
+or bullet in the midst of his youth and strength and joy in life, to
+gratify the damned dreams of the man who had been the honoured guest
+at Ashbridge, and those who had advised and flattered and at the end
+perhaps just used him as their dupe. To their insensate greed and
+swollen-headed lust for world-power was this hecatomb of sweet and
+pleasant lives offered, and in their onward course through the vines
+and corn of France they waded through the blood of the slain whose only
+crime was that they had dared to oppose the will of Germany, as voiced
+by the War Lord. And as milestones along the way they had come were set
+the records of their infamy, in rapine and ruthless slaughter of the
+innocent. Just at first, as he sat alone in his room, Michael but
+contemplated images that seemed to form in his mind without his
+volition, and, emotion-numb from the shock, they seemed external to
+him. Sometimes he had a vision of Francis lying without mark or wound or
+violence on him in some vineyard on the hill-side, with face as quiet
+as in sleep turned towards a moonlit sky. Then came another picture, and
+Francis was walking across the terrace at Ashbridge with his gun
+over his shoulder, towards Lord Ashbridge and the Emperor, who stood
+together, just as Michael had seen the three of them when they came
+in from the shooting-party. As Francis came near, the Emperor put a
+cartridge into his gun and shot him. . . . Yes, that was it: that was
+what had happened. The marvellous peacemaker of Europe, the fire-engine
+who, as Hermann had said, was ready to put out all conflagrations,
+the fatuous mountebank who pretended to be a friend to England, who
+conducted his own balderdash which he called music, had changed his role
+and shown his black heart and was out to kill.
+
+Wild panoramas like these streamed through Michael's head, as if
+projected there by some magic lantern, and while they lasted he was
+conscious of no grief at all, but only of a devouring hate for the mad,
+lawless butchers who had caused Francis's death, and willingly at that
+moment if he could have gone out into the night and killed a German, and
+met his death himself in the doing of it, he would have gone to his
+doom as to a bridal-bed. But by degrees, as the stress of these unsought
+imaginings abated, his thoughts turned to Francis himself again, who,
+through all his boyhood and early manhood, had been to him a sort of
+ideal and inspiration. How he had loved and admired him, yet never with
+a touch of jealousy! And Francis, whose letter lay open by him on the
+table, lay dead on the battlefields of France. There was the envelope,
+with the red square mark of the censor upon it, and the sheet with its
+gay scrawl in pencil, asking for proper cigarettes. And, with a pang
+of remorse, all the more vivid because it concerned so trivial a thing,
+Michael recollected that he had not sent them. He had meant to do so
+yesterday afternoon but something had put it out of his head. Never
+again would Francis ask him to send out cigarettes. Michael laid his
+head on his arms, so that his face was close to that pencilled note, and
+the relief of tears came to him.
+
+Soon he raised himself again, not ashamed of his sorrow, but somehow
+ashamed of the black hate that before had filled him. That was gone for
+the present, anyhow, and Michael was glad to find it vanished. Instead
+there was an aching pity, not for Francis alone nor for himself, but for
+all those concerned in this hideous business. A hundred and a thousand
+homes, thrown suddenly to-day into mourning, were there: no doubt there
+were houses in that Bavarian village in the pine woods above which he
+and Hermann had spent the day when there was no opera at Baireuth where
+a son or a brother or a father were mourned, and in the kinship of
+sorrow he found himself at peace with all who had suffered loss, with
+all who were living through days of deadly suspense. There was nothing
+effeminate or sentimental about it; he had never been manlier than in
+this moment when he claimed his right to be one with them. It was right
+to pause like this, with his hand clasped in the hands of friends and
+foes alike. But without disowning that, he knew that Francis's death,
+which had brought that home to him, had made him eager also for his own
+turn to come, when he would go out to help in the grim work that lay in
+front of him. He was perfectly ready to die if necessary, and if not, to
+kill as many Germans as possible. And somehow the two aspects of it
+all, the pity and the desire to kill, existed side by side, neither
+overlapping nor contradicting one another.
+
+
+His servant came into the room with a pencilled note, which he opened.
+It was from Sylvia.
+
+"Oh, Michael, I have just called and am waiting to know if you will see
+me. I have seen the news, and I want to tell you how sorry I am. But if
+you don't care to see me I know you will say so, won't you?"
+
+Though an hour before he had turned back on his way to go to Sylvia, he
+did not hesitate now.
+
+"Yes, ask Miss Falbe to come up," he said.
+
+She came up immediately, and once again as they met, the world and the
+war stood apart from them.
+
+"I did not expect you to come, Michael," she said, "when I saw the news.
+I did not mean to come here myself. But--but I had to. I had just to
+find out whether you wouldn't see me, and let me tell you how sorry I
+am."
+
+He smiled at her as they stood facing each other.
+
+"Thank you for coming," he said; "I'm so glad you came. But I had to be
+alone just a little."
+
+"I didn't do wrong?" she asked.
+
+"Indeed you didn't. I did wrong not to come to you. I loved Francis, you
+see."
+
+Already the shadow threatened again. It was just the fact that he loved
+Francis that had made it impossible for him to go to her, and he could
+not explain that. And as the shadow began to fall she gave a little
+shudder.
+
+"Oh, Michael, I know you did," she said. "It's just that which concerns
+us, that and my sympathy for you. He was such a dear. I only saw him,
+I know, once or twice, but from that I can guess what he was to you. He
+was a brother to you--a--a--Hermann."
+
+Michael felt, with Sylvia's hand in his, they were both running
+desperately away from the shadow that pursued them. Desperately he tried
+with her to evade it. But every word spoken between them seemed but to
+bring it nearer to them.
+
+"I only came to say that," she said. "I had to tell you myself, to see
+you as I told you, so that you could know how sincere, how heartfelt--"
+
+She stopped suddenly.
+
+"That's all, my dearest," she added. "I will go away again now."
+
+Across that shadow that had again fallen between them they looked and
+yearned for each other.
+
+"No, don't go--don't go," he said. "I want you more than ever. We are
+here, here and now, you and I, and what else matters in comparison of
+that? I loved Francis, as you know, and I love Hermann, but there is our
+love, the greatest thing of all. We've got it--it's here. Oh, Sylvia, we
+must be wise and simple, we must separate things, sort them out, not let
+them get mixed with one another. We can do it; I know we can. There's
+nothing outside us; nothing matters--nothing matters."
+
+There was just that ray of sun peering over the black cloud that
+illumined their faces to each other, while already the sharp peaked
+shadow of it had come between them. For that second, while he spoke, it
+seemed possible that, in the middle of welter and chaos and death and
+enmity, these two souls could stand apart, in the passionate serene of
+love, and the moment lasted for just as long as she flung herself into
+his arms. And then, even while her face was pressed to his, and while
+the riotous blood of their pressed lips sang to them, the shadow fell
+across them. Even as he asserted the inviolability of the sanctuary in
+which they stood, he knew it to be an impossible Utopia--that he should
+find with her the peace that should secure them from the raging storm,
+the cold shadow--and the loosening of her arms about his neck but
+endorsed the message of his own heart. For such heavenly security cannot
+come except to those who have been through the ultimate bitterness that
+the world can bring; it is not arrived at but through complete surrender
+to the trial of fire, and as yet, in spite of their opposed patriotism,
+in spite of her sincerest sympathy with Michael's loss, the assault
+on the most intimate lines of the fortress had not yet been delivered.
+Before they could reach the peace that passed understanding, a fiercer
+attack had to be repulsed, they had to stand and look at each other
+unembittered across waves and billows of a salter Marah than this.
+
+But still they clung, while in their eyes there passed backwards and
+forwards the message that said, "It is not yet; it is not thus!" They
+had been like two children springing together at the report of some
+thunder-clap, not knowing in the presence of what elemental outpouring
+of force they hid their faces together. As yet it but boomed on the
+horizon, though messages of its havoc reached them, and the test would
+come when it roared and lightened overhead. Already the tension of the
+approaching tempest had so wrought on them that for a month past they
+had been unreal to each other, wanting ease, wanting confidence; and
+now, when the first real shock had come, though for a moment it threw
+them into each other's arms, this was not, as they knew, the real, the
+final reconciliation, the touchstone that proved the gold. Francis's
+death, the cousin whom Michael loved, at the hands of one of the nation
+to whom Sylvia belonged, had momentarily made them feel that all else
+but their love was but external circumstance; and, even in the moment
+of their feeling this, the shadow fell again, and left them chilly and
+shivering.
+
+For a moment they still held each other round the neck and shoulder,
+then the hold slipped to the elbow, and soon their hands parted. As yet
+no word had been said since Michael asserted that nothing else mattered,
+and in the silence of their gradual estrangement the sanguine falsity of
+that grew and grew and grew.
+
+"I know what you feel," she said at length, "and I feel it also."
+
+Her voice broke, and her hands felt for his again.
+
+"Michael, where are you?" she cried. "No, don't touch me; I didn't mean
+that. Let's face it. For all we know, Hermann might have killed Francis.
+. . . Whether he did or not, doesn't matter. It might have been. It's
+like that."
+
+A minute before Michael, in soul and blood and mind and bones, had said
+that nothing but Sylvia and himself had any real existence. He had clung
+to her, even as she to him, hoping that this individual love would
+prove itself capable of overriding all else that existed. But it had not
+needed that she should speak to show him how pathetically he had erred.
+Before she had made a concrete instance he knew how hopeless his wish
+had been: the silence, the loosening of hands had told him that. And
+when she spoke there was a brutality in what she said, and worse than
+the brutality there was a plain, unvarnished truth.
+
+There was no question now of her going away at once, as she had
+proposed, any more than a boat in the rapids, roared round by breakers,
+can propose to start again. They were in the middle of it, and so
+short a way ahead was the cataract that ran with blood. On each side
+at present were fine, green landing-places; he at the oar, she at the
+tiller, could, if they were of one mind, still put ashore, could run
+their boat in, declining the passage of the cataract with all its risks,
+its river of blood. There was but a stroke of the oar to be made, a pull
+on a rope of the rudder, and a step ashore. Here was a way out of the
+storm and the rapids.
+
+A moment before, when, by their physical parting they had realised
+the strength of the bonds that held them apart this solution had not
+occurred to Sylvia. Now, critically and forlornly hopeful, it flashed
+on her. She felt, she almost felt--for the ultimate decision rested with
+him--that with him she would throw everything else aside, and escape,
+just escape, if so he willed it, into some haven of neutrality, where
+he and she would be together, leaving the rest of the world, her country
+and his, to fight over these irreconcilable quarrels. It did not seem to
+matter what happened to anybody else, provided only she and Michael were
+together, out of risk, out of harm. Other lives might be precious, other
+ideals and patriotisms might be at stake, but she wanted to be with him
+and nothing else at all. No tie counted compared to that; there was but
+one life given to man and woman, and now that her individual happiness,
+the individual joy of her love, was at stake, she felt, even as Michael
+had said, that nothing else mattered, that they would be right to
+realise themselves at any cost.
+
+She took his hands again.
+
+"Listen to me, Michael," she said. "I can't bear any longer that these
+horrors should keep rising up between us, and, while we are here in the
+middle of it all, it can't be otherwise. I ask you, then, to come away
+with me, to leave it all behind. It is not our quarrel. Already Hermann
+has gone; I can't lose you too."
+
+She looked up at him for a moment, and then quickly away again, for she
+felt her case, which seemed to her just now so imperative, slipping away
+from her in that glance she got of his eyes, that, for all the love that
+burned there, were blank with astonishment. She must convince him; but
+her own convictions were weak when she looked at him.
+
+"Don't answer me yet," she said. "Hear what I have to say. Don't you
+see that while we are like this we are lost to each other? And as you
+yourself said just now, nothing matters in comparison to our love. I
+want you to take me away, out of it all, so that we can find each other
+again. These horrors thwart and warp us; they spoil the best thing that
+the world holds for us. My patriotism is just as sound as yours, but
+I throw it away to get you. Do the same, then. You can get out of your
+service somehow. . . ."
+
+And then her voice began to falter.
+
+"If you loved me, you would do it," she said. "If--"
+
+And then suddenly she found she could say no more at all. She had hoped
+that when she stated these things she would convince him, and, behold,
+all she had done was to shake her own convictions so that they fell
+clattering round her like an unstable card-house. Desperately she looked
+again at him, wondering if she had convinced him at all, and then again
+she looked, wondering if she should see contempt in his eyes. After that
+she stood still and silent, and her face flamed.
+
+"Do you despise me, Michael?" she said.
+
+He gave a little sigh of utter content.
+
+"Oh, my dear, how I love you for suggesting such a sweet impossibility,"
+he said. "But how you would despise me if I consented."
+
+She did not answer.
+
+"Wouldn't you?" he repeated.
+
+She gave a sorrowful semblance of a laugh.
+
+"I suppose I should," she said.
+
+"And I know you would. You would contrast me in your mind, whether
+you wished to or not, with Hermann, with poor Francis, sorely to my
+disadvantage."
+
+They sat silent a little, but there was another question Sylvia had to
+ask for which she had to collect her courage. At last it came.
+
+"Have they told you yet when you are going?" she said.
+
+"Not for certain. But--it will be before many days are passed. And the
+question arises--will you marry me before I go?"
+
+She hid her face on his shoulder.
+
+"I will do what you wish," she said.
+
+"But I want to know your wish."
+
+She clung closer to him.
+
+"Michael, I don't think I could bear to part with you if we were
+married," she said. "It would be worse, I think, than it's going to be.
+But I intend to do exactly what you wish. You must tell me. I'm going to
+obey you before I am your wife as well as after."
+
+Michael had long debated this in his mind. It seemed to him that if
+he came back, as might easily happen, hopelessly crippled, incurably
+invalid, it would be placing Sylvia in an unfairly difficult position,
+if she was already his wife. He might be hideously disfigured; she would
+be bound to but a wreck of a man; he might be utterly unfit to be her
+husband, and yet she would be tied to him. He had already talked the
+question over with his father, who, with that curious posthumous anxiety
+to have a further direct heir, had urged that the marriage should take
+place at once; but with his own feeling on the subject, as well as
+Sylvia's, he at once made up his mind.
+
+"I agree with you," he said. "We will settle it so, then."
+
+She smiled at him.
+
+"How dreadfully business-like," she said, with an attempt at lightness.
+
+"I know. It's rather a good thing one has got to be business-like,
+when--"
+
+That failed also, and he drew her to him and kissed her.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+Michael was sitting in the kitchen of a French farm-house just outside
+the village of Laires, some three miles behind the English front. The
+kitchen door was open, and on the flagged floor was cast an oblong of
+primrose-coloured November sunshine, warm and pleasant, so that the
+bluebottle flies buzzed hopefully about it, settling occasionally on
+the cracked green door, where they cleaned their wings, and generally
+furbished themselves up, as if the warmth was that of a spring day that
+promised summer to follow. They were there in considerable numbers,
+for just outside in the cobbled yard was a heap of manure, where they
+hungrily congregated. Against the white-washed wall of the house there
+lay a fat sow, basking contentedly, and snorting in her dreams. The
+yard, bounded on two sides by the house walls, was shut in on the third
+by a row of farm-sheds, and the fourth was open. Just outside it stood
+a small copse half flooded with the brimming water of a sluggish stream
+that meandered by the side of the farm-road leading out of the yard,
+which turned to the left, and soon joined the highway. This farm-road
+was partly under water, though not deeply, so that by skirting along its
+raised banks it was possible to go dry-shod to the highway underneath
+which the stream passed in a brick culvert.
+
+Through the kitchen window, set opposite the door, could be seen a broad
+stretch of country of the fenland type, flat and bare, and intersected
+with dykes, where sedges stirred slightly in the southerly breeze. Here
+and there were pools of overflowed rivulets, and here and there were
+plantations of stunted hornbeam, the russet leaves of which still
+clung thickly to them. But in the main it was a bare and empty land,
+featureless and stolid.
+
+Just below the kitchen window there was a plot of cultivated ground,
+thriftily and economically used for the growing of vegetables.
+Concession, however, was made to the sense of brightness and beauty, for
+on each side of the path leading up to the door ran a row of Michaelmas
+daisies, rather battered by the fortnight of rain which had preceded
+this day of still warm sun, but struggling bravely to shake off the
+effect of the adverse conditions under which they had laboured.
+
+The kitchen itself was extremely clean and orderly. Its flagged floor
+was still damp and brown in patches from the washing it had received two
+hours before; but the draught between open window and open door was fast
+drying it. Down the centre of the room was a deal table without a cloth,
+on which were laid some half-dozen places, each marked with a knife and
+fork and spoon and a thick glass, ready for the serving of the midday
+meal. On the white-washed walls hung two photographs of family groups,
+in one of which appeared the father and mother and three little
+children, in the other the same personages some ten years later, and a
+lithograph of the Blessed Virgin. On each side of the table was a
+deal bench, at the head and foot two wooden armchairs. A dresser stood
+against the wall, on the floor by the oven was a frayed rug, and most
+important of all, to Michael's mind, was a big stewpot that stood on
+the top of the oven. From time to time a fat, comfortable Frenchwoman
+bustled in, and took off the lid of this to stir it, or placed on the
+dresser a plate of cheese, or a loaf of freshly cooked brown bread. Two
+or three of Michael's brother-officers were there, one sitting in the
+patch of sunlight with his back against the green door, another on the
+step outside. The post had come in not long before, and all of them,
+Michael included, were occupied with letters and papers.
+
+To-day there happened to be no letters for Michael, and the paper which
+he glanced at seemed a very feeble effort in the way of entertainment.
+There was no news in it, except news about the war, which here, out at
+the front, did not interest him in the least. Perhaps in England people
+liked to know that a hundred yards of trenches had been taken at one
+place, and that three German attacks had failed at another; but when
+you were actually engaged (or had been or would soon again be) in taking
+part in those things, it seemed a waste of paper and compositor's
+time to record them. There was a column of letters also from indignant
+Britons, using violent language about the crimes and treachery of
+Germany. That also was uninteresting and far-fetched. Nothing that
+Germany had done mattered the least. There was no use in arguing and
+slinging wild expressions about; it was a stale subject altogether
+when you were within earshot of that incessant booming of guns. All the
+morning that had gone on without break, and no doubt they would get news
+of what had happened before they set out again that evening for another
+spell in the trenches. But in all probability nothing particular had
+happened. Probably the London papers would record it next day, a further
+tediousness on their part. It would be much more interesting to hear
+what was going on there, whether there were any new plays, whether there
+had been any fresh concerts, what the weather was like, or even who had
+been lunching at Prince's, or dining at the Carlton.
+
+He put down his uninteresting paper, and strolled out into the farmyard,
+stepping over the legs of the junior officer who blocked the doorway,
+and did not attempt to move. On the doorstep was sitting a major of his
+regiment, who, more politely, shifted his place a little so that Michael
+should pass. Outside the smell of manure was acrid but not unpleasant,
+the old sow grunted in her sleep, and one of the green shutters outside
+the upper windows slowly blew to. There was someone inside the room
+apparently, for the moment after a hand and arm bare to the elbow were
+protruded, and fastened the latch of the shutter, so that it should not
+move again.
+
+A little further on was a rail that separated the copse from the
+roadway, and here out of the wind Michael sat down, and lit a cigarette
+to stop his yearning for the bubbling stewpot, which would not be
+broached for half an hour yet. The day, he believed, was Wednesday,
+but the whole quiet of the place, apart from that drowsy booming on
+the eastern horizon, made it feel like Sunday. Nobody but the fat
+Frenchwoman who bustled about had anything to do; there was a Sabbath
+leisure about everything, about the dozing sow, the buzzing flies, the
+lounging figures that read letters and papers. When last they were here,
+it is true, there were rather more of them. Eight officers had been
+billeted here last week, before they had been in the trenches and now
+there were but six. This evening they would set out again for another
+forty-eight hours in that hellish inferno, but to-morrow a fresh draft
+was arriving, so that when next they foregathered here, whatever had
+happened in the interval, there would probably be at least six of them.
+
+It did not seem to matter much what six there would be, or whether there
+would be more than six or less. All that mattered at this moment, as he
+inhaled the first incense of his cigarette, was that the rain was
+over for the present, that the sun shone from a blue sky, that he felt
+extraordinarily well and tranquil, and that dinner would soon be
+ready. But of all these agreeable things what pleased him most was the
+tranquillity; to be alive here with the manure heap steaming in the
+sun, and the sow asleep by the house wall, and swallows settling on the
+eaves, was "Paradise enow." Somewhere deep down in him were streams of
+yearning and of horror, flowing like an underground river in the dark.
+He yearned for Sylvia, he thought with horror of the two days in the
+trenches that had preceded this rest in the white-washed farm-house, and
+with horror he thought of the days and nights that would succeed it. But
+both horror and yearnings were stupefied by the content that flooded the
+present moment. No doubt it was reaction from what had gone before, but
+the reaction was complete. Just now he asked for nothing but to sit in
+the sun and smoke his cigarette, and wait for dinner. As far as he knew
+he did not think of anything particular; he just existed in the sun.
+
+The wind must have shifted a little, for before long it came round
+the corner of the house, and slightly spoiled the mellow warmth of the
+sunshine. This would never do. The Epicurean in him revolted at the idea
+of losing a moment of this complete well-being, and arguing that if the
+wind blew here, it must be dead calm below the kitchen window on the
+other side of the house, he got off his rail and walked along the
+slippery bank at the edge of the flooded road in order to go there. It
+was hard to keep his footing here, and his progress was slow, but he
+felt he would take any amount of trouble to avoid getting his feet wet
+in the flooded road. Then there was a patch of kitchen-garden to cross,
+where the mud clung rather annoyingly to his instep, and, having gained
+the garden path, he very carefully wiped his boots and with a fallen
+twig dug away the clots of soil that stuck to the instep.
+
+He found that he had been quite right in supposing that the air would
+be windless here, and full of great content he sat down with his back
+to the house wall. A tortoise-shell butterfly, encouraged by the warmth,
+was flitting about among the Michaelmas daisies that bordered the path
+and settling on them, opening its wings to the genial sun. Two or three
+bees buzzed there also; the summer-like tranquillity inserted into the
+middle of November squalls and rain, deluded them as well as Michael
+into living completely in the present hour. Gnats hovered about. One
+settled on Michael's hand, where he instantly killed it, and was sorry
+he had done so. For the time the booming of guns which had sounded
+incessantly all the morning to the east, stopped altogether, and
+absolute quiet reigned. Had he not been so hungry, and so unable to get
+the idea of the stewpot out of his head, Michael would have been content
+to sit with his back to the sun-warmed wall for ever.
+
+The high-road, raised and embanked above the low-lying fields, ran
+eastwards in an undeviating straight line. Just opposite the farm were
+the last outlying huts of the village, and from there onwards it lay
+untenanted. But before many minutes were passed, the quiet of the autumn
+noon began to be overscored by distant humming, faint at first, and then
+quickly growing louder, and he saw far away a little brown speck coming
+swiftly towards him. It turned out to be a dispatch-rider, mounted on a
+motor-bicycle, who with a hoot of his horn roared westward through
+the village. Immediately afterwards another humming, steadier and
+more sonorous, grew louder, and Michael, recognising it, looked up
+instinctively into the blue sky overhead, as an English aeroplane,
+flying low, came from somewhere behind, and passed directly over him,
+going eastwards. Before long it stopped its direct course, and began to
+mount in spirals, and when at a sufficient height, it resumed its onward
+journey towards the German lines. Then three or four privates, billeted
+in the village, and now resting after duty in the trenches, strolled
+along the road, laughing and talking. They sat down not a hundred yards
+from Michael and one began to whistle "Tipperary." Another and another
+took it up until all four were engaged on it. It was not precisely
+in tune nor were the performers in unison, but it produced a vaguely
+pleasant effect, and if not in tune with the notes as the composer wrote
+them, the sight and sound of those four whistling and idle soldiers was
+in tune with the air of security of Sunday morning.
+
+Something far down the road caught Michael's eye, some moving line
+of brown wagons. As they came nearer he saw that they were the
+motor-ambulances of the Red Cross, moving slowly along the ruts and
+holes which the traffic had worn, so that the occupants should suffer
+as little jolting as was possible. They carried no doubt the wounded who
+had been taken from the trenches last night, and now, after calling
+for them at the first dressing station in the rear of the lines, were
+removing them to hospital. As they passed the four men sitting by the
+roadside, one of them shouted, "Cheer, oh, mates!" and then they fell
+to whistling "Tipperary" again. Then, oh, blessed moment! the fat
+Frenchwoman looked out of the kitchen window just above his head.
+
+"Diner, m'sieu," she said, and Michael, without another thought of
+ambulance or aeroplane, scrambled to his feet. Somewhere in the middle
+distance of his mind he was sorry that this tranquil morning was over,
+just as below in the darkness of it there ran those streams of yearning
+and of horror, but all his ordinary work-a-day self was occupied with
+the immediate prospect of the stewpot. It was some sort of a ragout, he
+knew, and he lusted for it. Red wine of the country would be there,
+and cheese and new brown bread. . . . It surprised him to find how
+completely his bodily needs and the pleasure of their gratification had
+possession of him.
+
+They were under orders to go back to the trenches shortly after sunset,
+and when their meal was over there remained but an hour or two before
+they had to start. The warmth and glory of the day was already gone,
+and streamers of cloud were beginning to form over the open sky.
+All afternoon these thickened till a dull layer of grey had thickly
+overspread the heavens and below that arch of vapour that cut off
+the sun the wind was blowing chilly. With that change in the weather,
+Michael's mood changed also, and the horror of the return to the
+trenches began to come to the surface. He was not as yet aware of any
+physical fear of death or of wound, rather, the feeling was one of some
+mental and spiritual shrinking from the whole of this vast business of
+murder, where hundreds and thousands of men along the battle front that
+stretched half-way across Europe, were employed, day and night, without
+having any quarrel with each other, in the unsleeping vigilant work of
+killing. Most of them in all probability, were quite decent fellows,
+like those four who had whistled "Tipperary" together, and yet they were
+spending months of young, sweet life up to the knees in water, in foul
+and ill-smelling trenches in order to kill others whom they had never
+seen except as specks on the sights of their rifles. Somewhere behind
+that gruesome business, as he knew, there stood the Cause, calm and
+serene, like some great statue, which made this insensate murdering
+necessary; but just for an hour to-day, as he waited till they had to be
+on the move again, he found himself unable to make real to his own mind
+the existence of that cause, and could not see beyond the bloody and
+hideous things that resulted from it.
+
+Then, in this inaction of waiting, an attack of mere physical cowardice
+seized him, and he found himself imagining the mutilation and torture
+that perhaps awaited him personally in those deathly ditches. He tried
+to busy himself with the preparation of the few things that he would
+take with him, he tried to encourage himself by remembering that in his
+previous experiences there he had not been conscious of any fear, by
+telling himself that these were only the unreal anticipations that were
+always ready to pounce on one even before such mildly alarming affairs
+as a visit to the dentist; but in spite of his efforts, he found his
+hands growing clammy and cold at the thoughts which beset his brain.
+What if there happened to him what had happened to another junior
+officer who was close to him at the moment, when a fragment of shell
+turned him from a big gay boy into a writhing bundle at the bottom of
+the trench! He had lived for a couple of hours like that, moaning and
+crying out, "For God's sake kill me!" What if, more mercifully, he was
+killed outright, so that he would lie there in peace till next night
+they removed his body, or perhaps had to bury him in the trench itself,
+with a dozen handfuls of soil cast over him! At that he suddenly
+realised how passionately he wanted to live, to escape from this
+infernal butchery, to be safe again, gloriously or ingloriously, it
+mattered not which, to be with Sylvia once more. He told himself that
+he had been an utter fool ever to re-enter the army again like this.
+He could certainly have got some appointment as dispatch-carrier or had
+himself attached to the headquarters staff, or even have shuffled out of
+it altogether. . . . But, above all, he wanted Sylvia; he wanted to be
+allowed to lead the ordinary human life, safely and securely, with the
+girl he loved, and with the musical pursuits that were his passion.
+He had hated soldiering in times of peace; he found now that he was
+terrified of it in times of war. He felt physically sick, as with cold
+hands and trembling knees he stood and waited, lighting cigarettes and
+throwing them away, in front of the kitchen fire, where the stewpot
+was already bubbling again for those lucky devils who would return here
+to-night.
+
+The Major of his company was sitting in the window watching him, though
+Michael was unaware of it. Suddenly he got up, and came across to the
+fire, and put his hand on his shoulder.
+
+"Don't mind it, Comber," he said quietly. "We all get a touch of it
+sometimes. But you'll find it will pass all right. It's the waiting
+doing nothing that does it."
+
+That touched Michael absolutely in the right place.
+
+"Thanks awfully, sir," he said.
+
+"Not a bit. But it's damned beastly while it lasts. You'll be all right
+when we move. Don't forget to take your fur coat up if you've got one.
+We shall have a cold night."
+
+Just after sunset they set out, marching in the gathering dusk down the
+road eastwards, where in a mile or two they would strike the huge rabbit
+warren of trenches that joined the French line to the north and south.
+Once or twice they had to open out and go by the margin of the road to
+let ambulances or commissariat wagon go by, but there was but little
+traffic here, as the main lines of communication lay on other roads.
+High above them, scarcely visible in the dusk, an English aeroplane
+droned back from its reconnaissance, and once there was the order given
+to scatter over the fields as a German Taube passed across them. This
+caused much laughter and chaff among the men, and Michael heard one
+say, "Dove they call it, do they? I'd like to make a pigeon-pie of
+them doves." Soon they scrambled back on to the road again, and the
+interminable "Tipperary" was resumed, in whistle and song. Michael
+remembered how Aunt Barbara had heard it at a music-hall, and had spoken
+of it as a new and catchy tune which you could carry away with you.
+Nowadays, it carried you away. It had become the audible soul of the
+British army.
+
+The trench which Michael's company were to occupy for the next
+forty-eight hours was in the first firing-line, and to reach it they had
+to pass in single file up a mile of communication trenches, from
+which on all sides, like a vast rabbit warren, there opened out other
+galleries and passages that led to different parts of this net-work
+of the lines. It ran not in a straight line but in short sections with
+angles intervening, so under no circumstances could any considerable
+length of it be enfiladed, and was lit here and there by little oil
+lamps placed in embrasures in one or other wall of it, or for some
+distance at a time it was dark except for the vague twilight of the
+cloudy sky overhead. Then again, as they approached the firing-line, it
+would suddenly become intensely bright, when from the English lines, or
+from those of the Germans which lay not more than two hundred yards
+in front of them, a fireball or star-shell was sent up, that caused
+everything it shone upon to leap into vivid illumination. Usually, when
+this happened, there came from one side or the other a volley of rifle
+shots, that sounded like the crack of stock-whips, and once or twice a
+bullet passed over their heads with the buzz as of some vicious stinging
+insect. Here and there, where the bottom lay in soft and clayey soil,
+they walked through mud that came half-way up to the knee, and each foot
+had to be lifted with an effort, and was set free with a smacking suck.
+Elsewhere, if the ground was gravelly, the rain which for two days
+previously had been incessant, had drained off, and the going was easy.
+But whether the path lay over dry or soft places the air was sick with
+some stale odour which the breeze that swept across the lines from the
+south-east could not carry away. There was a perpetual pervading reek
+that flowed along from the entrance of trenches to right and left, that
+reminded Michael of the smell of a football scrimmage on a wet day,
+laden with the odours of sweat and dripping clothes, and something
+deadlier and more acrid. Sometimes they passed under a section covered
+in with boards, over which the earth and clods of turf had been
+replaced, so that reconnoitring aeroplanes should not so easily spy it
+out, and here from dark excavations the smell hung overpoweringly. Now
+and then the ground over which they passed yielded uneasily to the foot,
+where lay, only lightly covered over, some corpse which it had been
+impossible to remove, and from time to time they passed a huddled bundle
+of khaki not yet taken away. But except for the artillery duel that
+day they had heard going on that morning, the last day or two had been
+quiet, and the wounded had all been got out, and for the most part the
+dead also.
+
+After a long tramp in this communication trench they made a sharp turn
+to the right, and entered that which they were going to hold for
+the next forty-eight hours. Here they relieved the regiment that
+had occupied it till now, who filed out as they came in. Along it at
+intervals were excavations dug out in the side, some propped up with
+boards and posts, others, where the ground was of sufficiently holding
+character, just scooped out. In front, towards the German lines ran a
+parapet of excavated earth, with occasional peep-holes bored in it, so
+that the sentry going his rounds could look out and see if there was
+any sign of movement from opposite without showing his head above the
+entrenchment. But even this was a matter of some risk, since the enemy
+had located these peep-holes, and from time to time fired a shot from a
+fixed rifle that came straight through them and buried its bullet in the
+hinder wall of the trench. Other spy-holes were therefore being made,
+but these were not yet finished, and for the present till they were dug,
+it was necessary to use the old ones. The trench, like all the others,
+was excavated in short, zigzag lengths, so that no point, either to
+right or left, commanded more than a score of yards of it.
+
+In front, from just outside the parapet to a depth of some twenty yards,
+stretched the spider-web of wire entanglements, and a little farther
+down on the right there had been a copse of horn-beam saplings. An
+attempt had been made by the enemy during the morning to capture and
+entrench this, thus advancing their lines, but the movement had been
+seen, and the artillery fire, which had been so incessant all the
+morning, denoted the searching of this and the rendering of it
+untenable. How thorough that searching had been was clear, for that
+which had been an acre of wood was now but a heap of timber fit only for
+faggots. Scarcely a tree was left standing, and Michael, looking out
+of one of the peep-holes by the light of a star-shell saw that the wire
+entanglements were thick with leaves that the wind and the firing had
+detached from the broken branches. In turn, the wire entanglements had
+come in for some shelling by the enemy, and a squad of men were out now
+under cover of the darkness repairing these. There was a slight dip in
+the ground here, and by crouching and lying they were out of sight of
+the trenches opposite; but there were some snipers in that which had
+been a wood, from whom there came occasional shots. Then, from lower
+down to the right, there came a fusillade from the English lines
+suddenly breaking out, and after a few minutes as suddenly stopping
+again. But the sniping from the wood had ceased.
+
+Michael did not come on duty till six in the morning, and for the
+present he had nothing to do except eat his rations and sleep as well as
+he could in his dug-out. He had plenty of room to stretch his legs if he
+sat half upright, and having taken his Major's advice in the matter of
+bringing his fur coat with him, he found himself warm enough, in spite
+of the rather bitter wind that, striking an angle in the trench wall,
+eddied sharply into his retreat, to sleep. But not less justified than
+the advice to bring his fur coat was his Major's assurance that the
+attack of the horrors which had seized him after dinner that day, would
+pass off when the waiting was over. Throughout the evening his
+nerves had been perfectly steady, and, when in their progress up the
+communication trench they had passed a man half disembowelled by a
+fragment of a shell, and screaming, or when, as he trod on one of the
+uneasy places an arm had stirred and jerked up suddenly through the
+handful of earth that covered it, he had no first-hand sense of horror:
+he felt rather as if those things were happening not to him but to
+someone else, and that, at the most, they were strange and odd, but no
+longer horrible. But now, when reinforced by food again and comfortable
+beneath his fur cloak he let his mind do what it would, not checking
+it, but allowing it its natural internal activity, he found that a mood
+transcending any he had known yet was his. So far from these experiences
+being terrifying, so far from their being strange and unreal, they
+suddenly became intensely real and shone with a splendour that he had
+never suspected. Originally he had been pitchforked by his father into
+the army, and had left it to seek music. Sense of duty had made it easy
+for him to return to it at a time of national peril; but during all the
+bitter anxiety of that he had never, as in the light of the perception
+that came to him now, as the wind whistled round him in the dim lit
+darkness, had a glimpse of the glory of service to his country. Here,
+out in this small, evil-smelling cavern, with the whole grim business of
+war going on round him, he for the first time fully realised the reality
+of it all. He had been in the trenches before, but until now that had
+seemed some vague, evil dream, of which he was incredulous. Now in the
+darkness the darkness cleared, and the knowledge that this was the very
+thing itself, that a couple of hundred yards away were the lines of the
+enemy, whose power, for the honour of England and for the freedom of
+Europe, had to be broken utterly, filled him with a sense of firm,
+indescribable joy. The minor problems which had worried him, the fact
+of millions of treasure that might have fed the poor and needy over all
+Britain for a score of years, being outpoured in fire and steel, the
+fact of thousands of useful and happy lives being sacrificed, of widows
+and orphans and childless mothers growing ever a greater company--all
+these things, terrible to look at, if you looked at them alone, sank
+quietly into their sad appointed places when you looked at the thing
+entire. His own case sank there, too; music and life and love for which
+he would so rapturously have lived, were covered up now, and at this
+moment he would as rapturously have died, if, by his death, he could
+have served in his own infinitesimal degree, the cause he fought for.
+
+The hours went on, whether swiftly or slowly he did not consider.
+The wind fell, and for some minutes a heavy shower of rain plumped
+vertically into the trench. Once during it a sudden illumination blazed
+in the sky, and he saw the pebbles in the wall opposite shining with
+the fresh-falling drops. There were a dozen rifle-shots and he saw
+the sentry who had just passed brushing the edge of his coat against
+Michael's hand, pause, and look out through the spy-hole close by, and
+say something to himself. Occasionally he dozed for a little, and woke
+again from dreaming of Sylvia, into complete consciousness of where he
+was, and of that superb joy that pervaded him. By and by these dozings
+grew longer, and the intervals of wakefulness less, and for a couple of
+hours before he was roused he slept solidly and dreamlessly.
+
+His spell of duty began before dawn, and he got up to go his rounds,
+rather stiff and numb, and his sleep seemed to have wearied rather
+than refreshed him. In that hour of early morning, when vitality burns
+lowest, and the dying part their hold on life, the thrill that had
+possessed him during the earlier hours of the night, had died down. He
+knew, having once felt it, that it was there, and believed that it would
+come when called upon; but it had drowsed as he slept, and was overlaid
+by the sense of the grim, inexorable side of the whole business. A
+disconcerting bullet was plugged through a spy-hole the second after
+he had passed it; it sounded not angry, but merely business-like, and
+Michael found himself thinking that shots "fired in anger," as the
+phrase went, were much more likely to go wide than shots fired calmly.
+. . . That, in his sleepy brain, did not sound nonsense: it seemed to
+contain some great truth, if he could bother to think it out.
+
+But for that, all was quiet again, and he had returned to his dug-out,
+just noticing that the dawn was beginning to break, for the clouds
+overhead were becoming visible in outline with the light that filtered
+through them, and on their thinner margin turning rose-grey, when the
+alarm of an attack came down the line. Instantly the huddled, sleeping
+bodies that lay at the side of the trench started into being, and in the
+moment's pause that followed, Michael found himself fumbling at the butt
+of his revolver, which he had drawn out of its case. For that one moment
+he heard his heart thumping in his throat, and felt his mouth grow
+dry with some sudden panic fear that came from he knew not where, and
+invaded him. A qualm of sickness took him, something gurgled in his
+throat, and he spat on the floor of the trench. All this passed in one
+second, for at once he was master of himself again, though not master of
+a savage joy that thrilled him--the joy of this chance of killing those
+who fought against the peace and prosperity of the world. There was an
+attack coming out of the dark, and thank God, he was among those who had
+to meet it.
+
+He gave the order that had been passed to him, and on the word, this
+section of the trench was lined with men ready to pour a volley over the
+low parapet. He was there, too, wildly excited, close to the spy-hole
+that now showed as a luminous disc against the blackness of the trench.
+He looked out of this, and in the breaking dawn he saw nothing but
+the dark ground of the dip in front, and the level lines of the German
+trenches opposite. Then suddenly the grey emptiness was peopled; there
+sprang from the earth the advance line of the surprise, who began hewing
+a way through the entanglements, while behind the silhouette of the
+trenches was broken into a huddled, heaving line of men. Then came the
+order to fire, and he saw men dropping and falling out of sight, and
+others coming on, and yet again others. These, again, fell, but others
+(and now he could see the gleam of bayonets) came nearer, bursting and
+cutting their way through the wires. Then, from opposite to right and
+left sounded the crack of rifles, and the man next to Michael gave one
+grunt, and fell back into the trench, moving no more.
+
+Just immediately opposite were the few dozen men whose part it was to
+cut through the entanglements. They kept falling and passing out of
+sight, while others took their places. And then, for some reason,
+Michael found himself singling out just one of these, much in advance of
+the others, who was now close to the parapet. He was coming straight on
+him, and with a leap he cleared the last line of wire and towered above
+him. Michael shot him with his revolver as he stood but three yards from
+him, and he fell right across the parapet with head and shoulders inside
+the trench. And, as he dropped, Michael shouted, "Got him!" and then he
+looked. It was Hermann.
+
+Next moment he had scaled the side of the trench and, exerting all
+his strength, was dragging him over into safety. The advance of this
+section, who were to rush the trench, had been stopped, and again from
+right and left the rifle-fire poured out on the heads that appeared
+above the parapet. That did not seem to concern him; all he had to do
+that moment was to get Hermann out of fire, and just as he dragged his
+legs over the parapet, so that his weight fell firm and solid on to
+him, he felt what seemed a sharp tap on his right arm, and could not
+understand why it had become suddenly powerless. It dangled loosely from
+somewhere above the elbow, and when he tried to move his hand he found
+he could not.
+
+Then came a stab of hideous pain, which was over almost as soon as he
+had felt it, and he heard a man close to him say, "Are you hit, sir?"
+
+It was evident that this surprise attack had failed, for five minutes
+afterwards all was quiet again. Out of the grey of dawn it had come, and
+before dawn was rosy it was over, and Michael with his right arm numb
+but for an occasional twinge of violent agony that seemed to him more
+like a scream or a colour than pain, was leaning over Hermann, who lay
+on his back quite still, while on his tunic a splash of blood slowly
+grew larger. Dawn was already rosy when he moved slightly and opened his
+eyes.
+
+"Lieber Gott, Michael!" he whispered, his breath whistling in his
+throat. "Good morning, old boy!"
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+Three weeks later, Michael was sitting in his rooms in Half Moon Street,
+where he had arrived last night, expecting Sylvia. Since that attack at
+dawn in the trenches, he had been in hospital in France while his arm
+was mending. The bone had not been broken, but the muscles had been so
+badly torn that it was doubtful whether he would ever recover more than
+a very feeble power in it again. In any case, it would take many months
+before he recovered even the most elementary use of it.
+
+Those weeks had been a long-drawn continuous nightmare, not from the
+effect of the injury he had undergone, nor from any nervous breakdown,
+but from the sense of that which inevitably hung over him. For he knew,
+by an inward compulsion of his mind that admitted of no argument, that
+he had to tell Sylvia all that had happened in those ten minutes while
+the grey morning grew rosy. This sense of compulsion was deaf to all
+reasoning, however plausible. He knew perfectly well that unless he told
+Sylvia who it was whom he had shot at point-blank range, as he leaped
+the last wire entanglement, no one else ever could. Hermann was buried
+now in the same grave as others who had fallen that morning: his name
+would be given out as missing from the Bavarian corps to which he
+belonged, and in time, after the war was over, she would grow to believe
+that she would never see him again.
+
+But the sheer impossibility of letting this happen, though it entailed
+nothing on him except the mere abstention from speech, took away the
+slightest temptation that silence offered. He knew that again and again
+Sylvia would refer to Hermann, wondering where he was, praying for his
+safety, hoping perhaps even that, like Michael, he would be wounded and
+thus escape from the inferno at the front, and it was so absolutely
+out of the question that he should listen to this, try to offer little
+encouragements, wonder with her whether he was not safe, that even
+in his most depressed and shrinking hours he never for a moment
+contemplated silence. Certainly he had to tell her that Hermann was
+dead, and to account for the fact that he knew him to be dead. And
+in the long watches of the wakeful night, when his mind moved in the
+twilight of drowsiness and fever and pain, it was here that a certain
+temptation entered. For it was easy to say (and no one could ever
+contradict him) that some man near him, that one perhaps who had fallen
+back with a grunt, had killed Hermann on the edge of the trench. Humanly
+speaking, there was no chance at all of that innocent falsehood being
+disproved. In the scurry and wild confusion of the attack none but he
+would remember exactly what had happened, and as he thought of that
+tossing and turning, it seemed to one part of his mind that the
+innocence of that falsehood would even be laudable, be heroic. It would
+save Sylvia the horrible shock of knowing that her lover had killed her
+brother; it would save her all that piercing of the iron into her soul
+that must inevitably be suffered by her if she knew the truth. And who
+could tell what effect the knowledge of the truth would have on her?
+Michael felt that it was at the least possible that she could never bear
+to see him again, still less sleep in the arms of the one who had killed
+her brother. That knowledge, even if she could put it out of mind in
+pity and sorrow for Michael, would surely return and return again,
+and tear her from him sobbing and trembling. There was all to risk
+in telling her the truth; sorrow and bitterness for her and for him
+separation and a lifelong regret were piled up in the balance against
+the unknown weight of her love. Indeed, there was love on both sides of
+that balance. Who could tell how the gold weighed against the gold?
+
+Yet, after those drowsy, pain-streaked nights, when the sober light of
+dawn crept in at the windows, then, morning after morning, Michael knew
+that the inward compulsion was in no way weakened by all the reasons
+that he had urged. It remained ruthless and tender, a still small voice
+that was heard after the whirlwind and the fire. For the very reason why
+he longed to spare Sylvia this knowledge, namely, that they loved each
+other, was precisely the reason why he could not spare her. Yet it
+seemed so wanton, so useless, so unreasonable to tell her, so laden with
+a risk both for him and her that no standard could measure. But he no
+more contemplated--except in vain imagination--making up some ingenious
+story of this kind which would account for his knowledge of Hermann's
+death than he contemplated keeping silence altogether. It was not
+possible for him not to tell her everything, though, when he pictured
+himself doing so, he found himself faced by what seemed an inevitable
+impossibility. Though he did not see how his lips could frame the words,
+he knew they had to. Yet he could not but remember how mere reports in
+the paper, stories of German cruelty and what not, had overclouded the
+serenity of their love. What would happen when this news, no report or
+hearsay, came to her?
+
+He had not heard her foot on the stairs, nor did she wait for his
+servant to announce her; but, a little before her appointed time, she
+burst in upon him midway between smiles and tears, all tenderness.
+
+"Michael, my dear, my dear," she cried, "what a morning for me! For the
+first time to-day when I woke, I forgot about the war. And your poor
+arm? How goes it? Oh, I will take care, but I must and will have you in
+my arms."
+
+He had risen to greet her, and softly and gently she put her arms round
+his neck, drawing his head to her.
+
+"Oh, my Michael!" she whispered. "You've come back to me. Lieber Gott,
+how I have longed for you!"
+
+"Lieber Gott!" When last had he heard those words? He had to tell her.
+He would tell her in a minute or two. Perhaps she would never hold him
+like that again. He could not part with her at the very moment he had
+got her.
+
+"You look ever so well, Michael," she said, "in spite of your wound.
+You're so brown and lean and strong. And oh, how I have wanted you! I
+never knew how much till you went away."
+
+Looking at her, feeling her arms round him, Michael felt that what he
+had to say was beyond the power of his lips to utter. And yet, here in
+her presence, the absolute necessity of telling her climbed like some
+peak into the ample sunrise far above the darkness and the mists that
+hung low about it.
+
+"And what lots you must have to tell me," she said. "I want to hear
+all--all."
+
+Suddenly Michael put up his left hand and took away from his neck the
+arm that encircled it. But he did not let go of it. He held it in his
+hand.
+
+"I have to tell you one thing at once," he said. She looked at him, and
+the smile that burned in her eyes was extinguished. From his gesture,
+from his tone, she knew that he spoke of something as serious as their
+love.
+
+"What is it?" she said. "Tell me, then."
+
+He did not falter, but looked her full in the face. There was no
+breaking it to her, or letting her go through the gathering suspense of
+guessing.
+
+"It concerns Hermann," he said. "It concerns Hermann and me. The last
+morning that I was in the trenches, there was an attack at dawn from
+the German lines. They tried to rush our trench in the dark. Hermann
+led them. He got right up to the trench. And I shot him. I did not know,
+thank God!"
+
+Suddenly Michael could not bear to look at her any more. He put his arm
+on the table by him and, leaning his head on it, covering his eyes he
+went on. But his voice, up till now quite steady, faltered and failed,
+as the sobs gathered in his throat.
+
+"He fell across the parapet close to me," he said. . . . "I lifted him
+somehow into our trench. . . . I was wounded, then. . . . He lay at the
+bottom of the trench, Sylvia. . . . And I would to God it had been I who
+lay there. . . . Because I loved him. . . . Just at the end he opened
+his eyes, and saw me, and knew me. And he said--oh, Sylvia, Sylvia!--he
+said 'Lieber Gott, Michael. Good morning, old boy.' And then he
+died. . . . I have told you."
+
+And at that Michael broke down utterly and completely for the first time
+since the morning of which he spoke, and sobbed his heart out, while,
+unseen to him, Sylvia sat with hands clasped together and stretched
+towards him. Just for a little she let him weep his fill, but her
+yearning for him would not be withstood. She knew why he had told her,
+her whole heart spoke of the hugeness of it.
+
+Then once more she laid her arm on his neck.
+
+"Michael, my heart!" she said.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Michael, by E. F. Benson
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