sang “Who is Sylvia?” and Hermann told her that she shouldn’t have eaten so much lunch, or shouldn’t have sung; and then, by transitions that Michael could not recollect, they played the Hailstone Chorus out of Israel in Egypt (or, at any rate, reproduced the spirit of it), and both sang at the top of their voices.  Then, as usually happened in the afternoon, two or three friends dropped in, and though these were all intimate with their hosts, Michael had no impression of being out in the cold or among strangers.  And when he left he felt as if he had been stretching out chilly hands to the fire, and that the fire was always burning there, ready for him to heat himself at, with its welcoming flames and core of sincere warmth, whenever he felt so disposed.

At first he had let himself do this much less often than he would have liked, for the shyness of years, his over-sensitive modesty at his own want of charm and lightness, was a self-erected barrier in his way.  He was, in spite of his intimacy with Hermann, desperately afraid of being tiresome, of checking by his presence, as he had so often felt himself do before, the ease and high spirits of others.  But by degrees this broke down; he realised that he was now among those with whom he had that kinship of the mind and of tastes which makes the foundation on which friendship, and whatever friendship may ripen into, is securely built.  Never did the simplicity and sincerity of their welcome fail; the cordiality which greeted him was always his; he felt that it was intended that he should be at home there just as much as he cared to be.

The six working days of the week, however, were as a rule too full both for the Falbes and for Michael to do more than have, apart from the music lessons, flying glimpses of each other; for the day was taken up with work, concerts and opera occurred often in the evening, and the shuttles of London took their threads in divergent directions.  But on Sunday the house at Maidstone Crescent ceased, as Hermann said, to be a junction, and became a temporary terminus.

“We burst from our chrysalis, in fact,” he said.  “If you find it clearer to understand this way, we burst from our chrysalis and become a caterpillar.  Do chrysalides become caterpillars!  We do, anyhow.  If you come about eight you will find food; if you come later you will also find food of a sketchier kind.  People have a habit of dropping in on Sunday evening.  There’s music if anyone feels inclined to make any, and if they don’t they are made to.  Some people come early, others late, and they stop to breakfast if they wish.  It’s a gaudeamus, you know, a jolly, a jamboree.  One has to relax sometimes.”

Michael felt all his old unfitness for dreadful crowds return to him.

“Oh, I’m so bad at that sort of thing,” he said.  “I am a frightful kill-joy, Hermann.”

Hermann sat down on the treble part of his piano.

“That’s the most conceited thing I’ve heard you say yet,” he remarked.  “Nobody will pay any attention to you; you won’t kill anybody’s joy.  Also it’s rather rude of you.”