.

.

Yet, in the inexplicable ways of love, Sylvia and her brother not only did what could be done for her, but regarded her with the tenderest affection.
What that love lived on, what was its daily food would be hard to guess, were it not that love lives on itself.
The rest of the house, apart from the vacuum of Mrs.Falbe's rooms, conducted itself, so it seemed to Michael, at the highest possible pressure.

Sylvia and her brother were both far too busy to be restless, and if, on the one hand, Mrs.Falbe's remote, impenetrable life was inexplicable, not less inexplicable was the rage for living that possessed the other two.

From morning till night, and on Sundays from night till morning, life proceeded at top speed.
As regards household arrangements, which were all in Sylvia's hands, there were three fixed points in the day.