ssible 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