"I think I've heard you cry out 'Mother!' once or twice."
"Oh! And that is all?"
"Really, that's all—absolutely!" It was true, and I could speak with such sincerity that I forced belief.
Mrs. Brandreth looked relieved. "I'm glad!" she smiled. "I hate to make myself ridiculous. And I'm trying very hard now to control my subconscious self, which gets out of hand at night. It's simply the effect of my—grief—my loss I spoke of just now. I'm fairly normal otherwise."
"I hope you're not entirely normal!" I smiled back. "People one speaks of as 'normal' are so bromidic and dull! You look far too interesting, too individual to be normal."
She laughed. "So do you!"
"Oh, I'm not normal at all, thank goodness!"
"Well, you're certainly interesting—and individual—far more than I am."
"Anyhow, I'm sympathetic," I said. "I'm tremendously interested in other people. Not in their affairs, but in themselves. I never want to know anything they don't want me to know, yet I'm so conceited, I always imagine that I can help when they need help—just by sympathy alone, without a spoken word. But to come back to you! I have a lovely remedy for restlessness at night; not that I need it often myself, but my French-Italian maid carries dried orange leaves and blossoms for me. She thinks tisanes better than doctor's medicines. May she make some orange-flower tea for you to-night at bedtime?"
Mrs. Brandreth had shown signs of stiffening a little as I began, but she melted toward the last, and said that she would love to try the poetic-sounding tea.