"Did I ever have a red-haired nurse?" said Anthony suddenly.
Valerie shook her head.
"No," she said. "You had the same two all the time. Why?"
"I dreamed of a red-haired girl." Valerie sat very still. "André, her name was. I met her first in the road… I remember she knew me. She'd been hunting and looked like a Bacchanal. She turned up again later on—one night. I was just going to bed." He frowned at the recollection. "I wonder I didn't chatter about that. I was worried to blazes…."
"That—that's the worst of dreams," said Valerie slowly. "You're impotent."
With a shock she realized that she had written ANDRÉ in capitals in the middle of her letter, and, below it again, BACCHANAL. Casually she scratched out the words till her pen ploughed up the sodden paper.
"It's a wretched feeling," said Anthony. "I dreamt she—cared for me.
And I—I never got there. She had to tell me right out…. Oh,
Valerie, it was awful."
Miss French felt as though her heart had stopped beating. She could have screamed to Anthony to go on. Instead—
"Poor old chap," she said gently.
She had her reward.