from the death of the Dutchman?"
"Have you recovered, rather let me ask?" she said. "You were in a horrid
mood last night."
"I was feeling wretchedly ill," he said quietly.
That was the first time he had ever alluded to his own health.
"Not that there is any need to make an excuse," he continued, "for I do
not recognise that there is any necessity to consult one's surroundings,
and alter the inclination of one's mind accordingly. Still, as a matter
of fact, I felt very ill!"
"And to-day?" she asked.
"To-day I am myself again," he answered quickly: "that usual normal self
of mine, whatever that may mean. I slept well, and I dreamed of you.
I can't say that I had been thinking of you, because I had not. But I
dreamed that we were children together, and playmates. Now that was very
odd: because I was a lonely child, and never had any playmates."
"And I was lonely too," said Bernardine.
"Every one is lonely," he said, "but every one does not know it."
"But now and again the knowledge comes like a revelation," she said,
"and we realise that we stand practically alone, out of any one's reach
for help or comfort. When you come to think of it, too, how little able
we are to explain ourselves. When you have wanted to say something which
was burning within you, have you not noticed on the face of the listener
that unmistakable look of non-comprehension, which throws you back on
yourself? That is one of the moments when the soul knows its own
loneliness!"
Robert Allitsen looked up at her.
"You little thing," he said, "you put things neatly sometimes. You have
felt, haven't you?"
"I suppose so," she said. "But that is true of most people."
"I beg your pardon," he answered, "most people neither think nor feel:
unless they think they have an ache, and then they feel it!"
"I believe," said Bernardine, "that there is more thinking and feeling
than one generally supposes."
"Well, I can't be bothered with that now," he said. "And you interrupted
me about my dream. That is an annoying habit you have."
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