Some fortnight later, and not long before Michael was leaving town for his Christmas visit to Ashbridge, Sylvia and her brother were lingering in the big studio from which the last of their Sunday evening guests had just departed. The usual joyous chaos consequent on those entertainments reigned: the top of the piano was covered with the plates and glasses of those who had made an alfresco supper (or breakfast) of fried bacon and beer before leaving; a circle of cushions were ranged on the floor round the fire, for it was a bitterly cold night, and since, for some reason, a series of charades had been spontaneously generated, there was lying about an astonishing collection of pillow-cases, rugs, and table-cloths, and such articles of domestic and household use as could be converted into clothes for this purpose. But the event of the evening had undoubtedly been Hermann's performance of the "Wenceslas Variations"; these he had now learned, and, as he had promised Michael, was going to play them at his concert in the Steinway Hall in January. To-night a 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 a prominent critic of the day, "and he would hardly believe that they were an Opus I., or that Michael had not been studying music technically for years instead of six months. But that's the odd thing about Mike; he's so mature."It was not unusual for the brother and sister to sit up like this, till any hour, after their guests had gone; and Sylvia collected a bundle of cushions and lay full length on the floor, with her feet towards the fire. For both of them the week was too busy on six days for them to indulge that companionship, sometimes full of talk, sometimes consisting of those dropped words and long silences, on which intimacy lives; and they both enjoyed, above all hours in the week, this time that lay between the friendly riot of Sunday evening and the starting of work again on Monday. There was between them that bond which can scarcely exist between husband and wife, since it almost necessarily implies the close consanguinity of brother and sister, and postulates a certain sort of essential community of nature, founded not on tastes, nor even on affection, but on the fact that the same blood beats in the two. Here an intense affection, too strong to be ever demonstrative, fortified it, and both brother and sister talked to each other, as if they were speaking to some physically independent piece of themselves.
Sylvia had nothing apparently to add on the subject of Michael's maturity. Instead she just raised her head, which was not quite high enough.
"Stuff another cushion under my head, Hermann," she said. "Thanks;now I'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 been suppressed all his life, you know, and instead of being dwarfed he has just gone on growing inside. Good Lord! I wish somebody would suppress me for a year or two. What a lot there would be when I took the cork out again. We dissipate too much, Sylvia, both you and I."She gave a little grunt, which, from his knowledge of her inarticulate expressions, 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 shape of your nose or the colour of your eyes. By the way, I fell madly in love with that cousin of Michael's who came with him to-night. He's the most attractive creature I ever saw in my life.
Of course, he's too beautiful: no boy ought to be as beautiful as that.""You flirted with him," remarked Hermann. "Mike will probably murder him on 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 same question as his.
"No, not funny at all," he said. "Quite serious. Do you want to talk about it or not?"She gave a little groan.
"No, I don't want to, but I've got to," she said. "Aunt Barbara--we became Sylvia and Aunt Barbara an hour or two ago, and she's a dear--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 better make up my mind what I mean to say when Michael says what he means to say."She shifted round so as to face her brother as he stood in front of the fire, 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. "Ineedn't tell you how much I like Michael; I believe I like him as much as I possibly 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 her elbow. That expressed their attitude, what they were to each other, as absolutely as any physical demonstration allowed. Had there not been the difference of sex which severed them she could never have got the sense of support that this physical contact gave her; had there not been her sisterhood to chaperon her, so to speak, she could never have been so at ease with a man. The two were lover-like, without the physical apexes and limitations that physical love must always bring with it. The complement of sex that brought them so close annihilated the very existence 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 leg made Hermann step out of her encircling arm without any question of hurting her feelings.
