e dressed myself like a suburban housekeeper to meet a
Poiret, so don't deny it, and having humourously told Michael I wished
to see a prima donna and a pianist, he takes me at my word and produces
THE Miss Falbe. I'm glad I knew that in time; I should infallibly have
asked you to sing, and if you had done so--you are probably good-natured
enough to have done even that--I should have given the drawing-room
gasp at the end, and told your brother that I thought you sang very
prettily."

Sylvia laughed.

"But really it wasn't my fault, Lady Barbara," she said. "When we met I
couldn't have said, 'Beware! I am THE Miss Falbe.'"

"No, my dear; but I think you ought, somehow, to have conveyed the
impression that you were a tremendous swell. You didn't. I have been
thinking of you as a charming girl, and nothing more."

"But that's quite good enough for me," said Sylvia.

The two young men joined them after this, and Hermann speedily became
engrossed in reading the finished Variations. Some of these pleased him
mightily; one he altogether demurred to.

"It's just a crib, Mike," he said. "The critics would say I had
forgotten it, and put in instead what I could remember of a variation
out of the Handel theme. That next one's, oh, great fun. But I wish
you would remember that we all haven't got great orang-outang paws like
you."

Aunt Barbara stopped in the middle of her sentence; she knew Michael's
old sensitiveness about these physical disabilities, and she had a
moment's cold horror at the thought of Falbe having said so miserably
tactless a thing to him. But the horror was of infinitesimal duration,
for she heard Michael's laugh as they leaned over the top of the piano
together.

"I wish you had, Hermann," he said. "I know you'll bungle those tenths."

Falbe moved to the piano-seat.

"Oh, let's have a shot at it," he said. "If Lady Barbara won't mind,
play that one through to me first, Mike."

"Oh, presently, Hermann," he said. "It makes such an infernal row that
you can't hear anything else afterwards. Do sing, Miss Sylvia; my aunt
won't really mind--will you, Aunt Barbara?"

"Michael, I have just learned that this is THE Miss Falbe," she said. "I
am suffering from shock. Do let me suffer from coals of fire, too."

Michael gently edged Hermann away from the music-stool. Much as he
enjoyed his master's accompaniment he was perfectly sure that he
preferred, if possible, to play for Sylvia himself than have the