"Darling mother, I'm ever so much obliged," he said. "We had to return
to earth somehow. Where has everybody else been?"
Michael stirred in his chair.
"I've been here," he said.
"How dull! Oh, I suppose that's not polite to Sylvia. I've been in
Leipzig and in Frankfort and in Munich. You and Sylvia have been there,
too, I may tell you. But I've also been here: it's jolly here."
His sentimentalism had apparently not quite passed from him.
"Ah, we've stolen this hour!" he said. "We've taken it out of the
hurly-burly and had it to ourselves. It's been ripping. But I'm back
from the rim of the world. Oh, I've been there, too, and looked out over
the immortal sea. Lieber Gott, what a sea, where we all come from, and
where we all go to! We're just playing on the sand where the waves have
cast us up for one little hour. Oh, the pleasant warm sand and the play!
How I love it."
He got out of his chair stretching himself, as Mrs. Falbe passed into
the house, and gave a hand on each side to Michael and Sylvia.
"Ah, it was a good thing I just caught that train at Victoria nearly
a year ago," he said. "If I had been five seconds later, I should have
missed it, and so I should have missed my friend, and Sylvia would have
missed hers, and Mike would have missed his.
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