a man who did not recall him to himself, but took him clean out of that tedious dwelling which he knew so well and, indeed, disliked so much.  He was rid for the first time of his morbid self-consciousness; his anchor had been taken up from its dragging in the sand, and he rode free, buoyed on waters and taken by tides.  It did not occur to him to wonder whether Falbe thought him uncouth and awkward; it did not occur to him to try to be pleasant, a job over which poor Michael had so often found himself dishearteningly incapable; he let himself be himself in the consciousness that this was sufficient.

They had spent the morning together before this second performance of Parsifal that closed their series, in the woods above the theatre, and Michael, no longer blurting out his speeches, but speaking in the quiet, orderly manner in which he thought, discussed his plans.

“I shall come back to London with you after Munich,” he said, “and settle down to study.  I do know a certain amount about harmony already; I have been mugging it up for the last three years.  But I must do something as well as learn something, and, as I told you, I’m going to take up the piano seriously.”

Falbe was not attending particularly.

“A fine instrument, the piano,” he remarked.  “There is certainly something to be done with a piano, if you know how to do it.  I can strum a bit myself.  Some keys are harder than others—­the black notes.”

“Yes; what of the black notes?” asked Michael.

“Oh! they’re black.  The rest are white.  I beg your pardon!”

Michael laughed.

“When you have finished drivelling,” he said, “you might let me know.”

“I have finished drivelling, Michael.  I was thinking about something else.”

“Not really?”

“Really.”

“Then it was impolite of you, but you haven’t any manners.  I was talking about my career.  I want to do something, and these large hands are really rather nimble.  But I must be taught.  The question is whether you will teach me.”

Falbe hesitated.

“I can’t tell you,” he said, “till I have heard you play.  It’s like this:  I can’t teach you to play unless you know how, and I can’t tell if you know how until I have heard you.  If you have got that particular sort of temperament that can put itself into the notes out of the ends of your fingers, I can teach you, and I will.  But if you haven’t, I shall feel bound to advise you to try the Jew’s harp, and see if you can get it out of your teeth.  I’m not mocking you; I fancy you know that.  But some people, however keenly and rightly they feel, cannot bring their feelings out through their fingers.  Others can; it is a special gift.  If you haven’t got it, I can’t teach you anything, and there is no use in wasting your time and mine.  You can teach yourself to be frightfully nimble with your fingers, and all the people who don’t know will say:  ’How divinely Lord Comber plays!  That sweet thing; is it Brahms or Mendelssohn?’ But I can’t really help you towards that; you can do that for yourself.  But if you’ve got the other, I can and will teach you all that you really know already.”