id. "People like you and me, and Michael, too,
for that matter, are most entirely ourselves when we are at our music.
When Michael plays for me I can sing my soul at him. While he and I are
in music, if you understand--and of course you do--we belong to each
other. Do you know, Hermann, he finds me when I'm singing, without the
slightest effort, and even you, as you have so often told me, have
to search and be on the lookout. And then the song is over, and, as
somebody says, 'When the feast is finished and the lamps expire,'
then--well, the lamps expire, and he isn't me any longer, but Michael,
with the--the ugly face, and--oh, isn't it horrible of me--the long arms
and the little stumpy legs--if only he was rather different in things
that don't matter, that CAN'T matter! But--but, Hermann, if only Michael
was rather like you, and you like Michael, I should love you exactly as
much as ever, and I should love Michael, too."

She was leaning forward, and with both hands was very carefully tying
and untying one of Hermann's shoelaces.

"Oh, thank goodness there is somebody in the world to whom I can say
just whatever I feel, and know he understands," she said. "And I know
this, too--and follow me here, Hermann--I know that all that doesn't
really matter; I am sure it doesn't. I like Michael far too well to let
it matter. But there are other things which I don't see my way through,
and they are much more real--"

She was silent again, so long that Hermann reached out for a cigarette,
lit it, and threw away the match before she spoke.

"There is Michael's position," she said. "When Michael asks me if I
will have him, as we both know he is going to do, I shall have to make
conditions. I won't give up my career. I must go on working--in other
words, singing--whether I marry him or not. I don't call it singing, in
my sense of the word, to sing 'The Banks of Allan Water' to Michael
and his father and mother at Ashbridge, any more than it is being a
politician to read the morning papers and argue about the Irish question
with you. To have a career in politics means that you must be a member
of Parliament--I daresay the House of Lords would do--and make speeches
and stand the racket. In the same way, to be a singer doesn't mean to
sing after dinner or to go squawking anyhow in a workhouse, but it means
to get up on a platform before critical people, and if you don't do your
very best be damned by them. If I marry Michael I must