“That’s a weight off my mind,” he said. “About Michael now. He’s been suppressed all his life, you know, and instead of being dwarfed he has just gone on growing inside. Good Lord! I wish somebody would suppress me for a year or two. What a lot there would be when I took the cork out again. We dissipate too much, Sylvia, both you and I.” She gave a little grunt, which, from his knowledge of her inarticulate expressions, he took to mean dissent. “I suppose you mean we don’t,” he remarked. “Yes. How much one dissipates is determined for one just as is the shape of your nose or the colour of your eyes. By the way, I fell madly in love with that cousin of Michael’s who came with him to-night. He’s the most attractive creature I ever saw in my life. Of course, he’s too beautiful: no boy ought to be as beautiful as that.” “You flirted with him,” remarked Hermann. “Mike will probably murder him on the way home.” Sylvia moved her feet a little farther from the blaze. “Funny?” she asked. Instantly Falbe knew that her mind was occupied with exactly the same question as his. “No, not funny at all,” he said. “Quite serious. Do you want to talk about it or not?” She gave a little groan. “No, I don’t want to, but I’ve got to,” she said. “Aunt Barbara--we became Sylvia and Aunt Barbara an hour or two ago, and she’s a dear--Aunt Barbara has been talking to me about it already.” “And what did Aunt Barbara say?” “Just what you are going to,” said Sylvia; “namely, that I had better make up my mind what I mean to say when Michael says what he means to say.” She shifted round so as to face her brother as he stood in front of the fire, and pulled his trouser-leg more neatly over the top of his shoe. “But what’s to happen if I can’t make up my mind?” she said. “I needn’t tell you how much I like Michael; I believe I like him as much as I possibly can. But I don’t know if that is enough. Hermann, is it enough? You ought to know. There’s no use in you unless you know about me.” She put out her arm, and clasped his two legs in the crook of her elbow. That expressed their attitude, what they were to each other, as absolutely as any physical demonstration allowed. Had there not been the difference of sex which severed them she could never have got the sense of support that this physical contact gave her; had there not been her sisterhood to chaperon her, so to speak, she could never have been so at ease with a man. The two were lover-like, without the physical apexes and limitations that physical love must always bring with it. The complement of sex that brought them so close annihilated the very existence of sex. They loved as only brother and sister can love, without trouble. The closer contact of his fire-warmed trousers to the calf of his leg made Hermann step out of her encircling arm without any question of hurting her feelings.