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.