"And your friends?" she said. "Do you manage to see them?""Oh, yes, occasionally," said Michael. "They don't come here, for the presence of strangers makes my mother agitated. She thinks they have some design of taking her or me away. But she wants to see Sylvia. She knows about--about her and me, and I can't make up my mind what to do about it. She is always asking if I can't take her to see Sylvia, or get her to come here.""And why not? Sylvia knows about your mother, I suppose.""I expect so. I told Hermann. But I am afraid my mother will--well, you can't call it arguing--but will try to persuade her to have me. I can't let Sylvia in for that. Nor, if it comes to that, can I let myself in for that.""Can't you impress on your mother that she mustn't?"Michael leaned forward to the fire, pondering this, and stretching out his big hands to the blaze.
"Yes, I might," he said. "I should love to see Sylvia again, just see her, you know. We settled that the old terms we were on couldn't continue. At least, I settled that, and she understood.""Sylvia is a gaby," remarked Aunt Barbara.
"I'm rather glad you think so."
"Oh, get her to come," said she. "I'm sure your mother will do as you tell her. I'll be here too, if you like, if that will do any good. By the way, I see your Hermann's piano recital comes off to-morrow."
"I know. My mother wants to go to that, and I think I shall take her. Will you come too, Aunt Barbara, and sit on the other side of her? My 'Variations' are going to be played. If they are a success, Hermann tells me I shall be dragged screaming on to the platform, and have to bow. Lord! And if they're not, well, 'Lord'
also."
"Yes, my dear, of course I'll come. Let me see, I shall have to lie, as I have another engagement, but a little thing like that doesn't bother me."Suddenly she clapped her hands together.
"My dear, I quite forgot," she said. "Michael, such excitement.
You remember the boat you heard taking soundings on the deep-water reach? Of course you do! Well, I sent that information to the proper quarter, and since then watch has been kept in the woods just above it. Last night only the coastguard police caught four men at it--all Germans. They tried to escape as they did before, by rowing down the river, but there was a steam launch below which intercepted them. They had on them a chart of the reach, with soundings, nearly complete; and when they searched their houses--they are all tenants of your astute father, who merely laughed at us--they found a very decent map of certain private areas at Harwich. Oh, I'm not such a fool as I look. They thanked me, my dear, for my information, and I very gracefully said that my information was chiefly got by you.""But did those men live in Ashbridge?" asked Michael.
"Yes; and your father will have four decorous houses on his hands.
I am glad: he should not have laughed at us. It will teach him, Ihope. And now, my dear, I must go."
She stood up, and put her hand on Michael's arm.
"And you know what I think of you," she said. "To-morrow evening, then. I hate music usually; but then I adore Mr. Hermann. I only wish he wasn't a German. Can't you get him to naturalise himself and his sister?""You wouldn't ask that if you had seen him in Munich," said Michael.
"I suppose not. Patriotism is such a degrading emotion when it is not English."Michael's "Variations" came some half-way down the programme next evening, and as the moment for them approached, Lady Ashbridge got more and more excited.
"I hope he knows them by heart properly, dear," she whispered to Michael. "I shall be so nervous for fear he'll forget them in the middle, which is so liable to happen if you play without your notes."Michael laid his hand on his mother's.
"Hush, mother," he said, "you mustn't talk while he's playing.""Well, I was only whispering. But if you tell me I mustn't--"The hall was crammed from end to end, for not only was Hermann a person of innumerable friends, but he had already a considerable reputation, and, being a German, all musical England went to hear him. And to-night he was playing superbly, after a couple of days of miserable nervousness over his debut as a pianist; but his temperament was one of those that are strung up to their highest pitch by such nervous agonies; he required just that to make him do full justice to his own personality, and long before he came to the "Variations," Michael felt quite at ease about his success. There was no question about it any more: the whole audience knew that they were listening to a master. In the row immediately behind Michael's party were sitting Sylvia and her mother, who had not quite been torn away from her novels, since she had sought "The Love of Hermione Hogarth" underneath her cloak, and read it furtively in pauses. They had come in after Michael, and until the interval between the classical and the modern section of the concert he was unaware of their presence; then idly turning round to look at the crowded hall, he found himself face to face with the girl.
"I had no idea you were there," he said. "Hermann will do, won't he? I think--"And then suddenly the words of commonplace failed him, and he looked at her in silence.
"I knew you were back," she said. "Hermann told me about--everything."
Michael glanced sideways, indicating his mother, who sat next him, and was talking to Barbara.
"I wondered whether perhaps you would come and see my mother and me," he said. "May I write?"She looked at him with the friendliness of her smiling eyes and her grave mouth.
"Is it necessary to ask?" she said.
Michael turned back to his seat, for his mother had had quite enough of her sister-in-law, and wanted him again. She looked over her shoulder for a moment to see whom Michael was talking to.
