Yet the very fact of Sylvia's outspoken friendliness with him made her wonder a little as to what his reception would be.

She would hardly have said so plainly that she and her brother were devoted to him if she had been devoted to him with that secret tenderness which, in its essentials, is reticent about itself.

Her half-hour's conversation with the girl had given her a certain insight into her; still more had her attitude when she stood by Michael as he played for her, and put her hand on his shoulder precisely as she would have done if it had been another girl who was seated at the piano.

Without doubt Michael had a real existence for her, but there was no sign whatever that she hailed it, as a girl so unmistakably does, when she sees it as part of herself.
"More about them," she said.

"What are they?
Who are they ?" He outlined for her, giving the half-English, half-German parentage, the shadow-like mother, the Bavarian father, Sylvia's sudden and comet-like rising in the musical heaven, while her brother, seven years her senior, had spent his time in earning in order to give her the chance which she had so brilliantly taken.