"Pardon me," said he, "I had. But it is always startling to realise a dream." The Countess looked at Claudius rather inquiringly; perhaps she had not expected he was the sort of man to begin an acquaintance by making compliments. However, she said nothing, and he continued, "Do you not always find it so?"
"The bearded hermit is no duffer," thought Mr. Barker. "He will say grace over the whole barrel of pork."
"Ah! I have few dreams," replied the Countess, "and when I do have any, I never realise them. I am a very matter-of-fact person."
"What matters the fact when you are the person, Madam?" retorted Claudius, fencing for a discussion of some kind.
"Immense," thought Mr. Barker, changing one leg over the other and becoming interested.
"Does that mean anything, or is it only a pretty paradox?" asked the lady, observing that Claudius had thrown himself boldly into a crucial position. Upon his answer would probably depend her opinion of him as being either intelligent or banal. It is an easy matter to frame paradoxical questions implying a compliment, but it is no light task to be obliged to answer them oneself. Claudius was not thinking of producing an effect, for the fascination of the dark woman was upon him, and the low, strange voice bewitched him, so he said what came uppermost.
"Yes," said he, "there are persons whose lives may indeed be matters of fact to themselves—who shall say?—but who are always dreams in the lives of others."
"Charming," laughed the Countess, "do you always talk like that, Professor Claudius?"
"I have always thought," Mr. Barker remarked in his high-set voice, "that I would like to be the dream of somebody's life. But somehow things have gone against me."
The other two laughed. He did not strike one as the sort of individual who would haunt the love-sick dreams of a confiding heart.