“But I am sure Michael wants to talk to you, dear,” she said, “and you have not seen him all day.  I think I shall go up to bed.”

Sylvia made no further effort to detain her, but when she had gone, the silence in which they had so often sat together had taken on a perfectly different quality.

“And what have you been doing?” she said.  “Tell me about your day.  No, don’t.  I know it has all been concerned with war, and I don’t want to hear about it.”

“I dined with Aunt Barbara,” said Michael.  “She sent you her love.  She also wondered why you hadn’t been to see her for so long.”

Sylvia gave a short laugh, which had no touch of merriment in it.

“Did she really?” she asked.  “I should have thought she could have guessed.  She set every nerve in my body jangling last time I saw her by the way she talked about Germans.  And then suddenly she pulled herself up and apologised, saying she had forgotten.  That made it worse!  Michael, when you are unhappy, kindness is even more intolerable than unkindness.  I would sooner have Lady Barbara abusing my people than saying how sorry she is for me.  Don’t let’s talk about it!  Let’s do something.  Will you play, or shall I sing?  Let’s employ ourselves.”

Michael followed her lead.

“Ah, do sing,” he said.  “It’s weeks since I have heard you sing.”

She went quickly over to the bookcase of music by the piano.

“Come, then, let’s sing and forget,” she said.  “Hermann always said the artist was of no nationality.  Let’s begin quick.  These are all German songs:  don’t let’s have those.  Ah, and these, too!  What’s to be done?  All our songs seem to be German.”

Michael laughed.

“But we’ve just settled that artists have no nationality, so I suppose art hasn’t either,” he said.

Sylvia pulled herself together, conscious of a want of control, and laid her hand on Michael’s shoulder.

“Oh, Michael, what should I do without you?” she said.  “And yet—­well, let me sing.”

She had placed a volume of Schubert on the music-stand, and opening it at random he found “Du Bist die Ruhe.”  She sang the first verse, but in the middle of the second she stopped.

“I can’t,” she said.  “It’s no use.”

He turned round to her.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” he said.  “But you know that.”

She moved away from him, and walked down to the empty fireplace.

“I can’t keep silence,” she said, “though I know we settled not to talk of those things when necessarily we cannot feel absolutely at one.  But, just before you came in, I was reading the evening paper.  Michael, how can the English be so wicked as to print, and I suppose to believe, those awful things I find there?  You told me you had glanced at it.  Well, did you glance at the lies they tell about German atrocities?”

“Yes, I saw them,” said Michael.  “But it’s no use talking about them.”