She threw herself down beside him and nodded towards the fairy-ring. "Did they tell you?" she asked in low tone, and in all good faith.
"No, Bess. This is not the time for the little people to be abroad. I was only looking at their dancing-ground."
"Have you seen them here?"
"Often," replied Sidney with conviction, "small naked folk who dance and sing and play on queer instruments. They know that I see them; but they are not angry."
"I believe you are a fairy yourself Sidney."
"No. I have a soul--what you call a soul--and the fairies have none. They are only the creatures who attend to the works of Nature; her servants. I can see them because--" here Sidney broke off, "it is no use my telling you Bess, you would not understand."
Bess quite admitted this. She could not understand. All the same she did not tell her brother that he was a fool as many people would have done. She simply nodded, and passed the subject by. Her errand was to find out what Sidney had seen in the actual world. After the manner of her sex she approached the matter by a side-issue. "Sidney dear," said she, "do you know that Mr. Joyce has gone away to London?"
"No! I did not," replied Sidney gravely, "but I am very glad he has gone. A bad man Bess, and he would have done you harm."
"How? What do you mean." Sidney passed his hand across his face. "I cannot explain," he said in a troubled voice, "you see Bess, bad people carry about with them a bad atmosphere. That Mexican was very wicked; Joyce not so bad. Both of them made me feel quite ill. Did you never see how I refused to sit beside them? Well, that was because they gave me such pain. Not physical pain but a kind of uncomfortable feeling, which I can't put into words."
"In what an old-fashioned way you talk Sidney," said Bess puzzled, "one would think you were a hundred."