urse 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