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