‘Everybody’s thin somewhere,’ was what he almost expected to hear; but what he did hear was another sentence, followed by merry and delicious laughter: ‘Everybody can be happy somewhere!’
And close in front of him, rising, it seemed, out of the reeds and waves and yellow sands, stood—that veiled Companion whom he knew to be a part of himself.
She was turned away from him so that he could not see her face, yet he instantly divined a movement of her whole body towards him. Something within himself rushed out to meet her half-way. His life stirred mightily. The thrill of discovery came close. The next second his arms were about her and she was looking straight into his eyes.
But her own eyes were no longer veiled; her laughing face was clear as the day; the figure that he held so close was Nixie, child and woman. If ever it can be possible for two beings to melt into one, it was possible then. Each possessed the other; each slipped into the other.
‘Face to face at last!’ he heard himself cry. ‘Bless your little fairy heart! Why in the world didn’t I guess you sooner?’
A flame of happiness sped through him, and grief ran away utterly. The sense of loss that had numbed his soul vanished. And when she only answered him by the old mischievous laughter, he asked again: ‘But how did you disguise yourself so well—your voice, and everything——? Even if your face was veiled I ought to have recognised you! It’s too wonderful!’
‘It was you who disguised me!’ she replied, standing up close in front of him, and playing with his waistcoat buttons as of old. ‘Your thoughts about me got twisted—sometimes. You thought too much. You should have felt only.’
‘They never shall again,’ he exclaimed.
‘They never can. We are face to face now.’
Paul turned to look again more closely. He saw her with extraordinary detail and vividness. It was indeed Nixie, but Nixie exactly as he had always wanted her, without quite knowing it himself; at least, without acknowledging it. No gulf of age was there to separate them now. She was the perfect Companion, for he had made her so. He smoothed her hair as they turned to walk by the river, and he caught the old childish perfume of it as it spread untidily over his shoulder, her eyes like dropped stars shining through it.