But for the moment his old
invincible habit of shyness and sensitiveness forbade any responsive
lightness of welcome, and he was merely formal, merely courteous.
"And all your luggage left behind," he said. "Won't you be dreadfully
uncomfortable?"
"Uncomfortable? Why?" asked Falbe. "I shall buy a handkerchief and a
collar every day, and a shirt and a pair of socks every other day till
it arrives."
Michael felt a sudden, daring impulse. He remembered Aunt Barbara's
salutary remarks about crossness being the equivalent of thinking about
oneself. And the effort that it cost him may be taken as the measure of
his solitary disposition.
"But you needn't do that," he said, "if--if you will be good enough to
borrow of me till your things come."
He blurted it out awkwardly, almost brusquely, and Falbe looked slightly
amused at this wholly surprising offer of hospitality.
"But that's awfully good of you," he said, laughing and saying nothing
direct about his acceptance. "It implies, too, that you are going
to Baireuth. We travel together, then, I hope, for it is dismal work
travelling alone, isn't it? My sister tells me that half my friends were
picked up in railway carriages. Been there before?"
Michael felt himself lured from the ordinary aloofness of attitude and
demeanour, which had been somewhat accustomed to view all strangers with
suspicion.
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