Aunt Barbara got up.

“Ah, tell me more about them,” she said. “I want to get this nightmare out of my head. Sylvia, now. Sylvia is a good cure for the nightmare. Is she kind as she is fair, Michael?”

Michael was silent for a moment. Then he turned a quiet, radiant face to her.

“I can’t talk about it,” he said. “I can’t get accustomed to the wonder of it.”

“That will do. That’s a completely satisfactory account. But go on.”

Michael laughed.

“How can I?” he asked. “There’s no end and no beginning. I can’t ‘go on’ as you order me about a thing like that. There is Sylvia; there is me.”

“I must be content with that, then,” she said, smiling.

“We are,” said Michael.

Lady Barbara waited a moment without speaking.