He smiled.

“I have got some faint recollection of it,” he said.

Sylvia had got hold of her courage again.

“Have you?” she asked.  “What a wonderful memory.  And that quiet evening out here next day.  Perhaps you remember that too.  That was real:  that was a possession that we shan’t ever part with.”

She pointed with her finger.

“You and I sat there, and Hermann there,” she said.  “And mother sat—­why, there she is.  Mother darling, let’s have tea out here, shall we?  I will go and tell them.”

Mrs. Falbe had drifted out in her usual thistledown style, and shook hands with Michael.

“What an upset it all is,” she said, “with all these dreadful rumours going about that we shall be at war.  I fell asleep, I think, a little after lunch, when I could not attend to my book for thinking about war.”

“Isn’t the book interesting?” asked Michael.

“No, not very.  It is rather painful.  I do not know why people write about painful things when there are so many pleasant and interesting things to write about.  It seems to me very morbid.”

Michael heard something cried in the streets, and at the same moment he heard Sylvia’s step quickly crossing the studio to the side door that opened on to it.  In a minute she returned with a fresh edition of an evening paper.

“They are preparing to cross the Rhine,” she said.

Mrs. Falbe gave a little sigh.

“I don’t know, I am sure,” she said, “what you are in such a state about, Sylvia.  Of course the Germans want to get into France the easiest and quickest way, at least I’m sure I should.  It is very foolish of Belgium not to give them leave, as they are so much the strongest.”

“Mother darling, you don’t understand one syllable about it,” said Sylvia.

“Very likely not, dear, but I am very glad we are an island, and that nobody can come marching here.  But it is all a dreadful upset, Lord—­I mean Michael, what with Hermann in Germany, and the concert tour abandoned.  Still, if everything is quiet again by the middle of October, as I daresay it will be, it might come off after all.  He will be on the spot, and you and Michael can join him, though I’m not quite sure if that would be proper.  But we might arrange something:  he might meet you at Ostend.”

“I’m afraid it doesn’t look very likely,” remarked Michael mildly.

“Oh, and are you pessimistic too, like Sylvia?  Pray don’t be pessimistic.  There is a dreadful pessimist in my book, who always thinks the worst is going to happen.”

“And does it?” asked Michael.

“As far as I have got, it does, which makes it all the worse.  Of course I am very anxious about Hermann, but I feel sure he will come back safe to us.  I daresay France will give in when she sees Germany is in earnest.”