The water did not seem to be getting on, and Sylvia picked up her family papers to throw into the brazier. "Oh, I say, don't destroy without due consideration," Michael protested. "The war has developed in me a passionate conservatism for little things." "I am destroying nothing of any importance," Sylvia said. "Love-letters?" he murmured, with a smile. She flushed angrily and discovered in herself a ridiculous readiness to prove his speculation beside the mark. "If I ever had any love-letters I certainly never kept them," she avowed. "These are only musty records of a past the influence of which has already exhausted itself." "But photographs?" he persisted. "Let me look. Old photographs always thrill me." She showed him one or two of her mother. "Odd," he commented. "She rather reminds me of my sister. Something about the way the eyes are set." "You're worrying about her?" Sylvia put in, quickly. "No, no. Of course I shall be glad to hear she's safely by the sea on the other side, but I'm not worrying about her to the extent of fancying a non-existent likeness. There really is one; and if it comes to that, you're not unlike her yourself." "My father and my grandfather were both English," Sylvia said. "My mother was French and my grandmother was Polish. My grandfather's name was Cunningham." "What?" Michael asked, sharply. "That's odd." "Quite a distinguished person according to the old Frenchman whom the world regarded as my grandfather." She handed him Bassompierre's rambling statement about the circumstances of her mother's birth, which he read and put down with an exclamation. "Well, this is really extraordinary! Do you know that we're second cousins? This Charles Cunningham became the twelfth Lord Saxby. My father was the thirteenth and last earl. What a trick for fate to play upon us both! No wonder there's a likeness between you and Stella. How strange it makes that time at Mulberry Cottage seem. But you know, I always felt that underneath our open and violent hostility there was a radical sympathy quite inexplicable. This explains it." Sylvia was not at all sure that she felt grateful toward the explanation; mere kinship had never stood for much in her life. "You must try to sleep again now," she said, sternly. "But you don't seem at all amazed at this coincidence," Michael protested. "You accept it as if it was a perfectly ordinary occurrence." "I want you to sleep. Take this milk. We are sure to have a nerve-racking day with these Bulgarians." "Sylvia, what's the matter?" he persisted. "Why should my discovery of our relationship annoy you?" "It doesn't annoy me, but I want you to sleep. Do remember that you've only just returned to yourself and that you'll soon want all your strength."