Kathleen looked at her hands. They were of marble whiteness. Her dress, too her shoes, her stockings, even the ends of her hair. She was white as new-fallen snow.
"What is it?" she asked, beginning to tremble. "What am I all this horrid colour for?"
"Don't you see? Oh, Cathy, don't you see? You've not come right.
You're a statue still."
"I'm not I'm alive I'm talking to you."
"I know you are, darling," said Mabel, soothing her as one soothes a fractious child. "That's because it's moonlight."
"But you can see I'm alive."
"Of course I can. I've got the ring."
"But I'm all right; I know I am."
"Don't you see," said Mabel gently, taking her white marble hand, "you're not all right? It's moonlight, and you're a statue, and you've just come alive with all the other statues. And when the moon goes down you'll just be a statue again. That's the difficulty, dear, about our going home again. You're just a statue still, only you've come alive with the other marble things. Where's the dinosaurus?"
"In his bath," said Kathleen, "and so are all the other stone beasts."