He was looking listlessly out over the sea as he spoke, and Joan felt thankful his eyes were turned away from her, for this wonderful dream incident made her grow hot all over. He seemed to divine by her silence that his answer to her question had not added to her happiness.
"I shouldn't have told you that, Joan, only you asked me. You see, in dreams, we are real in some senses, though unreal in others. In dreams the savage part of us comes to the top and Nature can whisper to us. She chooses night to do so and often speaks to men in visions, because by day the voice of the world is in their ears and they have no attention for any other. It was strange, too, that I should fancy such a thing—should imagine I was kissing you—because I never kissed a woman in my life."
But from her point of view this falsehood was not so alluring as he meant to make it sound.
"'Twould be wrong to kiss any maiden, I reckon, onless you was tokened to her or she were your awn sister."
"But, as we look at life, we're all brothers and sisters, Joan—with Nature for our mother. We agreed about that long ago."
He turned to his easel, and she went and stood where her feet had already made a brown mark on the grass.
"I seen you last night, but you dedn' see me," she said, changing the conversation with abruptness.
"Yes, I did," he answered, "sitting under the shadow of the lighthouse, waiting for Mr. Tregenza, I expect."
"An' you never took no note o' me!"
He flung down his brushes, turned away from the picture before he had touched it, and went and lay near the edge of the cliff.