She came and sat down by him again.

“I believe you have got enough artistic instinct to understand that, Michael,” she said, “and to know what a tremendous help it is to one’s art to be a professional, and to be judged seriously.  I suppose that, ideally, if one loves music as I do one ought to be able to do one’s very best, whether one is singing professionally or not, but it is hardly possible.  Why, the whole difference between amateurs and professionals is that amateurs sing charmingly and professionals just sing.  Only they sing as well as they possibly can, not only because they love it, but because if they don’t they will be dropped on to, and if they continue not singing their best, will lose their place which they have so hardly won.  I can see myself, perhaps, not singing at all, literally never opening my lips in song again, but I can’t see myself coming down to the Drill Hall at Brixton, extremely beautifully dressed, with rows of pearls, and arriving rather late, and just singing charmingly.  It’s such a spur to know that serious musicians judge one’s performance by the highest possible standard.  It’s so relaxing to think that one can easily sing well enough, that one can delight ninety-nine hundredths of the audience without any real effort.  I could sing ’The Lost Chord’ and move the whole Drill Hall at Brixton to tears.  But there might be one man there who knew, you or Hermann or some other, and at the end he would just shrug his shoulders ever so slightly, and I would wish I had never been born.”

She paused a moment.

“I’ll not sing any more at all, ever,” she said, “or I must sing to those who will take me seriously and judge me ruthlessly.  To sing just well enough to please isn’t possible.  I’ll do either you like.”

Mrs. Falbe strayed in at this moment with her finger in her book, but otherwise as purposeless as a wandering mist.

“I was afraid it might be going to get chilly,” she remarked.  “After a hot day there is often a cool evening.  Will you stop and dine, Lord—­I mean, Michael?”

“Please; certainly!” said Michael.

“Then I hope there will be something for you to eat.  Sylvia, is there something to eat?  No doubt you will see to that, darling.  I shall just rest upstairs for a little before dinner, and perhaps finish my book.  So pleased you are stopping.”

She drifted towards the studio door, in thistledown fashion catching at corners a little, and then moving smoothly on again, talking gently half to herself, half to the others.

“And Hermann’s not in yet, but if Lord—­I mean, Michael, is going to stop here till dinnertime, it won’t matter whether Hermann comes in in time to dress or not, as Michael is not dressed either.  Oh, there is the postman’s knock!  What a noise!  I am not expecting any letters.”

The knock in question, however, proved to be Hermann, who, as was generally the case, had forgotten his latchkey.  He ran into his mother at the studio door, and came and sat down, regardless of whether he was wanted or not, between the two on the sofa, and took an arm of each.