he knew who he was, that, however trivial their
conversation might be, it somehow resembled eavesdropping to talk to
a chance fellow-passenger as if he were a complete stranger. But it
required again a certain effort to make the announcement.

"I think I had better tell you," he said at length, "that I know you,
that I've listened to you at least, at your sister's recital a few days
ago."

Falbe turned to him with the friendliest pleasure.

"Ah! were you there?" he asked. "I hope you listened to her, then, not
to me. She sang well, didn't she?"

"But divinely. At the same time I did listen to you, especially in the
French songs. There was less song, you know."

Falbe laughed.

"And more accompaniment!" he said. "Perhaps you play?"

Michael was seized with a fit of shyness at the idea of talking to Falbe
about himself.

"Oh, I just strum," he said.

Throughout the journey their acquaintanceship ripened; and casually,
in dropped remarks, the two began to learn something about each other.
Falbe's command of English, as well as his sister's, which was so
complete that it was impossible to believe that a foreigner was
speaking, was explained, for it came out that his mother was
English, and that from infancy they had spoken German and English
indiscriminately. His father, who had died some dozen years before, had
been a singer of some note in his native land, but was distinguished
more for his teaching than his practice, and it was he who had taught
his daughter. Hermann Falbe himself had always intended to be a pianist,
but the poverty in which they were left at his father's death had
obliged him to give lessons rather than devote himself to his own
career; but now at the age of thirty he found himself within sight of
the competence that would allow him to cut down his pupils, and begin to
be a pupil again himself.

His sister, moreover, for whom he had slaved for years in order that she
might continue her own singing education unchecked, was now more than
able, especially after these last three months in London, where she had
suddenly leaped into eminence, to support herself and contributed to the
expenses of their common home. But there was still, so Michael gathered,
no great superabundance of money, and he guessed that Falbe's inability
to go to Munich was due to the question of expense.

All this came out by inference and allusion rather than by direct
information, while Michael, naturally reticent and