"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.

"I won't be burned," he said. "Sorry, but I won't be burned. It seems to me, Sylvia, that you ought to like Michael a little more and a little less."

"It's no use saying what I ought to do," she said. "The idea of what I 'ought' doesn't come in. I like him just as much as I like him, neither more nor less."

(Editor：food)