, the thorn that had
pricked her was peeled off. They wondered if Hermann had come in yet.
Then, by some vague process of locomotion, they found themselves at
the piano, and with her arm around his neck Sylvia has whispered half a
verse of the song of herself. . . .

They became a little more definite over lover-confessions. Michael had,
so to speak, nothing to confess: he had loved all along--he had wanted
her all along; there never had been the least pretence or nonsense about
it. Her path was a little more difficult to trace, but once it had been
traversed it was clear enough. She had liked him always; she had felt
sister-like from the moment when Hermann brought him to the house, and
sister-like she had continued to feel, even when Michael had definitely
declared there was "no thoroughfare" there. She had missed that
relationship when it stopped: she did not mind telling him that now,
since it was abandoned by them both; but not for the world would she
have confessed before that she had missed it. She had loved being asked
to come and see his mother, and it was during those visits that she had
helped to pile the barricade across the "sister-thoroughfare" with her
own hands. She began to share Michael's sense of the impossibility of
that road. They could not walk down it together, for they had to be
either more or less to each other than that. And, during these visits,
she had begun to understand (and her face a little hid itself) what
Michael's love meant. She saw it manifested towards his mother; she was
taught by it; she learned it; and, she supposed, she loved it. Anyhow,
having seen it, she could not want Michael as a brother any longer, and
if he still wanted anything else, she supposed (so she supposed) that
some time he would mention that fact. Yes: she began to hope that he
would not be very long about it. . . .

Michael went over this very deliberately as he sat waiting for her
twenty-four hours later. He rehearsed this moment and that over and over
again: in mind he followed himself and Sylvia across to the piano, not
hurrying their steps, and going through the verse of the song she
sang at the pace at which she actually sang it. And, as he dreamed and
recollected, he heard a little stir in the quiet house, and Sylvia came.

They met just as they met yesterday in front of the fireplace.

"Oh, Michael, have you been waiting long?" she said.

"Yes, hours, or perhaps a couple of minutes. I don't know."