"But, my dear Arden," said Winter, balancing the pince-nez in his hand, "there is nothing whatever in the story that you have told me. What could be more natural than that your two friends should examine the floor, should do so with too little care, and should reap the consequences? The repeated dream is itself quite natural; I should imagine there are few people who have not had it. At the most it is a coincidence that the dream, accompanied by somnambulism, should have come three nights in succession, but there is nothing supernatural there."
"Never mind that word supernatural. Do you think there is anything inexplicable? You are forgetting that the bed in that chamber had been slept in both nights. The sleeper had been awakened by some sound. What was it? What drew him to the trap-door? What was it that took possession of my will and my body so that my own personality was as blotted out as if I had been dead? But," he added, impatiently, "I do not want to convince you. When you are brought in touch, as I have been, with the unseen power you will be convinced. As your friend, I hope you never will be."
A BRISK ENGAGEMENT
He stepped out of the fashionable bazaar into the crowded street, where the July sun flashed on the ugly and beautiful and on the grey background. He was a young man with the face of a dreamer, but his hair was properly cut and he was as well and cleanly turned out as if he had been a soldier. He wore in his buttonhole a red rose; it was not his habit to decorate himself florally, but these things happen at bazaars; some pretty fool-girl had sold it to him. And Lady Mabel Silverton, who is not pretty but a dear sweet creature, had sold him iced coffee and drunk it for him—she would do anything for a charity—and bothered him to come and sing one Saturday night to her darling factory-girls, who would be so very, very grateful. The hum of many nicely-toned voices and the passionate waltz of the Mauve Hungarians still blended and swam in his ears. He still seemed to smell the scent of the smouldering incense sticks on the stall where Mrs Bunningham Smythe, clad in an Oriental robe of thoroughly Western impropriety, sold penny "Turkish Amulets" at ten shillings apiece to those young men who were sufficiently fond of her for the purpose. He was stupid with it all. He left it, and the long string of carriages at the doors, and wandered out into the Park. And he chose the more deserted part of the Park.
Yes, it was no worse than anything else, as his cousin had said when she had bothered him into going. But the young man was mildly, temporarily, and uncomplainingly bored with most things. There was too much sugar in the cup; he found the taste sickly. This London world in which he lived was too luxurious, too idle, and worked too hard at being too idle. He was weary of the mechanical metallic frivolity of smart people, frivolity without one touch of sincerity and earnestness to give it contrast and effect. It was the end of the season, and he would soon be away in the country—only to find London in the country. There would be the same people with the same bad habits, merely transplanted to a scene which did not suit them.
He stood still and looked around him. There was a man with a crowd before him in the distance by the Marble Arch; he waved his arms and lectured violently. Children chased one another across the grass. Down the path towards him came a girl who held herself well. A tramp under the trees roused himself from slumber, and began slowly and painfully to put on his boots. And the young man thought it would make the very pleasantest holiday if he could change with somebody—even with the tramp under the trees for a few hours and get rid of himself. He chanced to remember that rose in his coat, and did not like it. He raised his hand to take it out. And the girl whose graceful carriage he had noticed stepped shyly up to him.
"It is you then? It must be," she said, in rather a frightened voice.
In a flash he saw that the girl mistook him for somebody else, and—since chance willed it—decided to be for a while that somebody.