."
"Don't do anything of the kind," said Michael.
"But I must. And if when you are down at Ashbridge at Christmas you
find strangers hanging about the deep-water reach, you might just let me
know. It's no use telling your father, because he will certainly think
they have come to get a glimpse of him as he plays golf. But I expect
you'll be too busy thinking about that new friend of yours, and perhaps
his sister. What did she tell me we had got to do? 'To her garlands let
us bring,' was it not? You and I will both send wreaths, Michael, though
not for her funeral. Now don't be a hermit any more, but come and see
me. You shall take your garland girl into dinner, if she will come,
too; and her brother shall certainly sit next me. I am so glad you have
become yourself at last. Go on being yourself more and more, my dear: it
suits you."
CHAPTER VIII
Some fortnight later, and not long before Michael was leaving town for
his Christmas visit to Ashbridge, Sylvia and her brother were lingering
in the big studio from which the last of their Sunday evening guests had
just departed. The usual joyous chaos consequent on those entertainments
reigned: the top of the piano was covered with the plates and glasses of
those who had made an alfresco supper (or breakfast) of fried bacon and
beer before leaving; a circle of cushions were ranged on the floor round
the fire, for it was a bitterly cold night, and since, for some reason,
a series of charades had been spontaneously generated, there was lying
about an astonishing collection of pillow-cases, rugs, and table-cloths,
and such articles of domestic and household use as could be converted
into clothes for this purpose. But the event of the evening had
undoubtedly been Hermann's performance of the "Wenceslas Variations";
these he had now learned, and, as he had promised Michael, was going
to play them at his concert in the Steinway Hall in January. To-night
a good many musician friends had attended the Sunday evening gathering,
and there had been no two opinions about the success of them.
"I was talking to Arthur Lagden about them," said Falbe, naming a
prominent critic of the day, "and he would hardly believe that they were
an Opus I., or that Michael had not been studying music technically for
years instead of six months. But that's the odd thing about Mike; he's
so mature."
It was not unusual for the brother and sister to sit up like this, till
any hour, after their g
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