afterwards, Margaret did not feel the slightest rancour.
But looks have their influence upon character. The sisters
were alike as little girls, but at the time of the Wilcox
episode their methods were beginning to diverge; the younger
was rather apt to entice people, and, in enticing them, to
be herself enticed; the elder went straight ahead, and
accepted an occasional failure as part of the game.

Little need be premised about Tibby. He was now an
intelligent man of sixteen, but dyspeptic and difficile.


Chapter 5

It will be generally admitted that Beethoven's Fifth
Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated
into the ear of man. All sorts and conditions are satisfied
by it. Whether you are like Mrs. Munt, and tap
surreptitiously when the tunes come--of course, not so as to
disturb the others--; or like Helen, who can see heroes and
shipwrecks in the music's flood; or like Margaret, who can
only see the music; or like Tibby, who is profoundly versed
in counterpoint, and holds the full score open on his knee;
or like their cousin, Fraulein Mosebach, who remembers all
the time that Beethoven is "echt Deutsch"; or like Fraulein
Mosebach's young man, who can remember nothing but Fraulein
Mosebach: in any case, the passion of your life becomes more
vivid, and you are bound to admit that such a noise is cheap
at two shillings. It is cheap, even if you hear it in the
Queen's Hall, dreariest music-room in London, though not as