the last of their Sunday evening guests hadjust departed. The usual joyous chaos consequent on those entertainmentsreigned: the top of the piano was covered with the plates and glasses ofthose who had made an alfresco supper (or breakfast) of fried bacon andbeer before leaving; a circle of cushions were ranged on the floor roundthe fire, for it was a bitterly cold night, and since, for some reason,a series of charades had been spontaneously generated, there was lyingabout an astonishing collection of pillow-cases, rugs, and table-cloths,and such articles of domestic and household use as could be convertedinto clothes for this purpose. But the event of the evening hadundoubtedly been Hermann's performance of the "Wenceslas Variations";these he had now learned, and, as he had promised Michael, was goingto play them at his concert in the Steinway Hall in January. To-nighta 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 aprominent critic of the day, "and he would hardly believe that they werean Opus I., or that Michael had not been studying music technically foryears instead of six months. But that's the odd thing about Mike; he'sso mature."
It was not unusual for the brother and sister to sit up like this, tillany hour, after their guests had gone; and Sylvia collected a bundleof cushions and lay full length on the floor, with her feet towards thefire. For both of them the week was too busy on six days for them toindulge that companionship, sometimes full of talk, sometimes consistingof those dropped words and long silences, on which intimacy lives;and they both enjoyed, above all hours in the week, this time that laybetween the friendly riot of Sunday evening and the starting of workagain on Monday. There was between them that bond which can scarcelyexist between husband and wife, since it almost necessarily implies theclose consanguinity of brother and sister, and postulates a certain sortof essential community of nature, founded not on tastes, nor even onaffection, but on the fact that the same blood beats in the two. Herean intense affection, too strong to be ever demonstrative, fortifiedit, and both brother and sister talked to each other, as if they werespeaking to some physically independent piece of themselves.
Sylvia had nothing apparently to add on the subject of Michael'smaturity. Instead she just raised her head, which was not quite highenough.
"Stuff another cushion under my head, Hermann," she said. "Thanks; nowI'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 beensuppressed all his life, you know, and instead of being dwarfed he hasjust gone on growing inside. Good Lord! I wish somebody would suppressme for a year or two. What a lot there would be when I took the cork outagain. We dissipate too much, Sylvia, both you and I."
She gave a little grunt, which, from his knowledge of her inarticulateexpressions, 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 shapeof your nose or the colour of your eyes. By the way, I fell madly inlove with that cousin of Michael's who came with him to-night. He'sthe most attractive creature I ever saw in my life. Of course, he's toobeautiful: no boy ought to be as beautiful as that."
"You flirted with him," remarked Hermann. "Mike will probably murder himon 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 samequestion as his.
"No, not funny at all," he said. "Quite serious. Do you want to talkabout it or not?"
She gave a little groan.
"No, I don't want to, but I've got to," she said. "Aunt Barbara--webecame Sylvia and Aunt Barbara an hour or two ago, and she's adear--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 bettermake up my mind what I mean to say when Michael says what he means tosay."
She shifted round so as to face her brother as he stood in front of thefire, 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'ttell you how much I like Michael; I believe I like him as much as Ipossibly 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 herelbow. That expressed their attitude, what they were to each other, asabsolutely as any physical demonstration allowed. Had there not been thedifference of sex which severed them she could never have got the senseof support that this physical contact gave her; had there not been hersisterhood to chaperon her, so to speak, she could never have been soat ease with a man. The two were lover-like, without the physicalapexes and limitations that physical love must always bring with it.The complement of sex that brought them so close annihilated the veryexistence 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 legmade Hermann step out of her encircling arm without any question ofhurting her feelings.
"I won't be burned," he said. "Sorry, but I won't be burned. It seemsto me, Sylvia, that you ought to like Michael a little more and a littleless."
"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, neithermore nor less."
He clawed some more cushions together, and sat down on the floor byher. She raised herself a little and rested her body against his foldedknees.
"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 arein music, if you understand--and of course you do--we belong to eachother. Do you know, Hermann, he finds me when I'm singing, without theslightest effort, and even you, as you have so often told me, haveto search and be on the lookout. And then the song is over, and, assomebody 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 armsand the little stumpy legs--if only he was rather different in thingsthat don't matter, that CAN'T matter! But--but, Hermann, if only Michaelwas rather like you, and you like Michael, I should love you exactly asmuch as ever, and I should love Michael, too."
She was leaning forward, and with both hands was very carefully tyingand untying one of Hermann's shoelaces.
"Oh, thank goodness there is somebody in the world to whom I can sayjust whatever I feel, and know he understands," she said. "And I knowthis, too--and follow me here, Hermann--I know that all that doesn'treally matter; I am sure it doesn't. I like Michael far too well to letit 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 Iwill have him, as we both know he is going to do, I shall have to makeconditions. I won't give up my career. I must go on working--in otherwords, singing--whether I marry him or not. I don't call it singing, inmy sense of the word, to sing 'The Banks of Allan Water' to Michaeland his father and mother at Ashbridge, any more than it is being apolitician to read the morning papers and argue about the Irish questionwith you. To have a career in politics means that you must be a memberof Parliament--I daresay the House of Lords would do--and make s
peechesand stand the racket. In the same way, to be a singer doesn't mean tosing after dinner or to go squawking anyhow in a workhouse, but it meansto get up on a platform before critical people, and if you don't do yourvery best be damned by them. If I marry Michael I must go on singingas a professional singer, and not become an amateur--the ViscountessComber, who sings so charmingly. I refuse to sing charmingly; I willeither sing properly or not at all. And I couldn't not sing. I shallhave to continue being Miss Falbe, so to speak."
"You say you insist on it," said Hermann; "but whether