"Not always...."
"Good girl. She shall have a white mark for telling the truth."
"But ... this afternoon I did n't know ... that I was coming here. They may be anxious."
"Suppose we walk as far as the other seat before going back. Would that make them very, very anxious?"
"Perhaps we might walk as far as that ... if you wish."
And they walked—a whole legion of devils in attendance upon the man. The searching eye, gazing keenly along the cliff from seat to seat, found them once more at the second, and blinked knowingly. "The old, old comedy," it told itself. But for all that, it was not quite the old, old comedy of the true Shippus sort. The devils were practically in possession of the dream-Spawer's soul, but the dream-Spawer was so completely detached from the real Spawer's body that no physical manifestation took place. The dream-Spawer, floating to and fro above the small, pitiful, carnal presentment, like a balloon in oscillation, wound dream arms about the girl, pressed dream kisses upon her lips, felt her own dream arms wind celestially about his neck; suffocated all remorse, all scruples, all purpose, all resolution, beneath kisses soft and seductive as the roseate clouds of a July sunset ... but there was no contact with the earthly Spawer. All this the vast dream-Spawer did, but the small earthly Spawer beneath stood still and looked at the sea.
And a little later the searching eye from Farnborough, stealing a sly glimpse at the second seat, said a sudden "Hello!" and gazed in unconcealed, wide-open surprise. "H'm!" it reflected, in a tone of considerable disappointment. "So they 've gone at last. Sorry I could n't see the end of that business. Wonder where they are now."
But it had other little episodes to keep its eye upon—Merensea, Farnborough, and even Spathorpe way—and could not afford to waste time in useless regrets.
CHAPTER XX
The crisis was over, but the danger of relapse remained. The dream had not been broken, it had merely been prolonged. Slowly or suddenly, the awakening was bound to come. Every step of the homeward road that they took was unwinding their dream like a skein of worsted. And now, incredulous as it may seem, with the homeward end in view, the Spawer recommenced to apply himself, by a kind of feverish rote, to the preparation of the task that he had been so ready to cast down.