At last she was interested and amused. There was no reason why I should not tell her of my midnight adventure. We never repeated one another's little confidences.
She listened, with many comments and exclamations, to the story of the unseen lady, the legend of the fair witch, the dagger that was a paper-knife by day and the severed tresses. She did not hear of the singular nightmare or hallucination that had been my second visitor. My reason had accounted for the experience and dismissed it. Some other part of myself avoided the memory with that deep, unreasoning sense of horror sometimes left by a morbid dream.
The dinner crowd had flowed in while we ate and talked. A burst of applause aroused me to this fact and the commencement of the first show of the evening. The orchestra had taken their places.
"They will hardly begin with their best act," I remarked, surprised by Phillida's convulsive start and rapt intentness upon the stretch of ice that formed the exhibition floor. "Your ballet on skates probably will come later."
"I did not come to see the ballet," she answered, her voice low.
"No? What, then?"
"A—man I know?"
Once when I was a little fellow, I raced headlong into the low-swinging branch of a tree, the bough striking me across the forehead so that I was bowled over backward amid a shower of apples. I felt a twin sensation, now.
"Here, Phillida?"
"Yes."