"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 t.i.tles.

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 pa.s.sage 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, n.o.body 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 G.o.dforsaken arrangement? Now!"

A very simple little minuet measure followed this outrageous pa.s.sage, 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 a.s.sertion 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 cla.s.s, 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 att.i.tude 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.