"I'm enjoying my concert, dear," she said. "And who is that nice young lady? Is she a friend of yours?"The interval was over, and Hermann returned to the platform, and waiting for a moment for the buzz of conversation to die down, gave out, without any preliminary excursion on the keys, the text of Michael's "Variations." Then he began to tell them, with light and flying fingers, what that simple tune had suggested to Michael, how he imagined himself looking on at an old-fashioned dance, and while the dancers moved to the graceful measure of a minuet, or daintily in a gavotte, the tune of "Good King Wenceslas" still rang in his head, or, how in the joy of the sunlight of a spring morning it still haunted him. It lay behind a cascade of foaming waters that, leaping, roared into a ravine; it marched with flying banners on some day of victorious entry, it watched a funeral procession wind by, with tapers and the smell of incense; it heard, as it got nearer back to itself again, the peals of Christmas bells, and stood forth again in its own person, decorated and emblazoned.
Hermann had already captured his audience; now he held them tame in the hollow of his hand. Twice he bowed, and then, in answer to the demand, just beckoned with his finger to Michael, who rose. For a moment his mother wished to detain him.
"You're not going to leave me, my dear, are you?" she asked anxiously.
He waited to explain to her quietly, left her, and, feeling rather dazed, made his way round to the back and saw the open door on to the platform confronting him. He felt that no power on earth could make him step into the naked publicity there, but at the moment Hermann appeared in the doorway.
"Come on, Mike," he said, laughing. "Thank the pretty ladies and gentlemen! Lord, isn't it all a lark!"Michael advanced with him, stared and hoped he smiled properly, though he felt that he was nailing some hideous grimace to his face; and then just below him he saw his mother eagerly pointing him out to a total stranger, with gesticulation, and just behind her Sylvia looking at her, and not at him, with such tenderness, such kindly pity. There were the two most intimately bound into his life, the mother who wanted him, the girl whom he wanted; and by his side was Hermann, who, as Michael always knew, had thrown open the gates of life to him. All the rest, even including Aunt Barbara, seemed of no significance in that moment. Afterwards, no doubt, he would be glad they were pleased, be proud of having pleased them; but just now, even when, for the first time in his life, that intoxicating wine of appreciation was given him, he stood with it bubbling and yellow in his hand, not drinking of it.
Michael had prepared the way of Sylvia's coming by telling his mother the identity of the "nice young lady" at the concert; he had also impressed on her the paramount importance of not saying anything with regard to him that could possibly embarrass the nice young lady, and when Sylvia came to tea a few days later, he was quite without any uneasiness, while for himself he was only conscious of that thirst for her physical presence, the desire, as he had said to Aunt Barbara, "just to see her." Nor was there the slightest embarrassment in their meeting! it was clear that there was not the least difficulty either for him or her in being natural, which, as usually happens, was the complete solution.
"That is good of you to come," he said, meeting her almost at the door. "My mother has been looking forward to your visit. Mother dear, here is Miss Falbe."Lady Ashbridge was pathetically eager to be what she called "good."Michael had made it clear to her that it was his wish that Miss Falbe should not be embarrassed, and any wish just now expressed by Michael was of the nature of a divine command to her.
"Well, this is a pleasure," she said, looking across to Michael with the eyes of a dog on a beloved master. "And we are not strangers quite, are we, Miss Falbe? We sat so near each other to listen to your brother, who I am sure plays beautifully, and the music which Michael made. Haven't I got a clever son, and such a good one?"Sylvia was unerring. Michael had known she would be.
"Indeed, you have," she said, sitting down by her. "And Michael mustn't hear what we say about him, must he, or he'll be getting conceited."Lady Ashbridge laughed.
"And that would never do, would it?" she said, still retaining Sylvia's hand. Then a little dim ripple of compunction broke in her mind. "Michael," she said, "we are only joking about your getting conceited. Miss Falbe and I are only joking. And--and won't you take off your hat, Miss Falbe, for you are not going to hurry away, are you? You are going to pay us a long visit."Michael had not time to remind his mother that ladies who come to tea do not usually take their hats off, for on the word Sylvia's hands were busy with her hatpins.
"I'm so glad you suggested that," she said. "I always want to take my hat off. I don't know who invented hats, but I wish he hadn't."Lady Ashbridge looked at her masses of bright hair, and could not help telegraphing a note of admiration, as it were, to Michael.
