"Well, then, as it is not private, and as you insist," he said, "Iwill certainly tell you. Does it not strike you that you are behaving like an absolute stranger to me? We have talked of me and my home and my plans all the time since we met at Victoria Station, and you have kept complete silence about yourself. I know nothing of you, not who you are, or what you are, or what your flag is.
You fly no flag, you proclaim no identity. You may be a crossing-sweeper, or a grocer, or a marquis for all I know. Of course, that matters very little; but what does matter is that never for a moment have you shown me not what you happen to be, but what you are. I've got the impression that you are something, that there's a real 'you' in your inside. But you don't let me see it. You send a polite servant to the door when I knock. Probably this sounds very weird and un-English to you. But to my mind it is much more weird to behave as you are behaving. Come out, can't you.
Let's look at you."
It was exactly that--that brusque, unsentimental appeal--that Michael needed. He saw himself at that moment, as Falbe saw him, a shelled and muffled figure, intangible and withdrawn, but observing, as it were, through eye-holes, and giving nothing in exchange for what he saw.
"I'm sorry," he said. "It's quite true what you tell me. I'm like that. But it really has never struck me that anybody cared to know."Falbe ceased digging his excavation in the pine-needles and looked up on Michael.
"Good Lord, man!" he said; "people care if you'll only allow them to. The indifference of other people is a false term for the secretiveness of oneself. How can they care, unless you let them know what there is to care for?""But I'm completely uninteresting," said Michael.
"Yes; I'll judge of that," said Falbe.
Slowly, and with diffident pauses, Michael began to speak of himself, feeling at first as if he was undressing in public. But as he went on he became conscious of the welcome that his story received, though that welcome only expressed itself in perfectly unemotional monosyllables. He might be undressing, but he was undressing in front of a fire. He knew that he uncovered himself to no icy blast or contemptuous rain, as he had felt when, so few days before, he had spoken of himself and what he was to his father. There was here the common land of music to build upon, whereas to Lord Ashbridge that same soil had been, so to speak, the territory of the enemy. And even more than that, there was the instinct, the certain conviction that he was telling his tale to sympathetic ears, to which the mere fact that he was speaking of himself presupposed a friendly hearing. Falbe, he felt, wanted to know about him, regardless of the nature of his confessions. Had he said that he was an undetected kleptomaniac, Falbe would have liked to know, have been pleased at any tidings, provided only they were authentic. This seemed to reveal itself to him even as he spoke; it had been there waiting for him to claim it, lying there as in a poste restante, only ready for its owner.
At the end Falbe gave a long sigh.
"And why the devil didn't you give me any hint of it before?" he asked.
"I didn't think it mattered," said Michael.
"Well, then, you are amazingly wrong. Good Lord, it's about the most interesting thing I've ever heard. I didn't know anybody could escape from that awful sort of prison-house in which our--I'm English now--in which our upper class immures itself. Yet you've done it. I take it that the thing is done now?""I'm not going back into the prison-house again, if you mean that,"said Michael.
"And will your father cut you off?" asked he.
"Oh, I haven't the least idea," said Michael.
"Aren't you going to inquire?"
Michael hesitated.
"No, I'm sure I'm not," he said. "I can't do that. It's his business. I couldn't ask about what he had done, or meant to do.
It's a sort of pride, I suppose. He will do as he thinks proper, and when he has thought, perhaps he will tell me what he intends.""But, then, how will you live?" asked Falbe.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you that. I've got some money, quite a lot, I mean, from my grandmother. In some ways I rather wish I hadn't.
It would have been a proof of sincerity to have become poor. That wouldn't have made the smallest difference to my resolution."Falbe laughed.
"And so you are rich, and yet go second-class," he said. "If Iwere rich I would make myself exceedingly comfortable. I like things that are good to eat and soft to touch. But I'm bound to say that I get on quite excellently without them. Being poor does not make the smallest difference to one's happiness, but only to the number of one's pleasures."Michael paused a moment, and then found courage to say what for the last two days he had been longing to give utterance to.
"I know; but pleasures are very nice things," he said. "And doesn't it seem obvious now that you are coming to Munich with me?
It's a purely selfish suggestion on my part. After being with you it will be very stupid to be alone there. But it would be so delightful if you would come."Falbe looked at him a moment without speaking, but Michael saw the light in his eyes.
"And what if I have my pride too?" he said. "Then I shall apologise for having made the proposal," said Michael simply.
For just a second more Falbe hesitated. Then he held out his hand.
"I thank you most awfully," he said. "I accept with the greatest pleasure."Michael drew a long breath of relief.
