'You forget the girl--the girl of the portrait, I mean,' suggested Rose quickly. Lewis frowned.
'She disappeared, they say, just before we reached Hodinuggur. I should like, by the way, to see the picture, if you don't mind.'
He stood looking at it in silence for some time.
'And that, you say, was the face of your dream?' he asked at last.
'The face, the dress, the pot clasped so to her breast. I seem to grow more sure of it every hour. And I am certain now it was she who said, "I am Azîzan."'
'That sort of certainty grows upon one unconsciously,' he replied, after another pause. 'I confess it is odd; but you can hardly believe it really was the potter's daughter! She has been dead these sixteen years. You think it was her ghost, perhaps; but did George paint the ghost?'
Rose stood silent, her hands clasped tightly.
'Who knows?' she said slowly. 'One knows so little. When I think of it all--of that strange old man with his refrain, "We come and go--we come and go," I seem to feel that odd, uncanny sense of helplessness which one has during a storm at sea, when you realise that the waves are not moving on at all, but rise and fall, rise and fall for ever in the same place. It is the ship which drifts within their power, giving them their wrecker's chance once more. And now--you will say that I am superstitious; but I almost regret that you should bring Mr. Fitzgerald into this business at all. You remember the potter's measure? Think of it, and how poor George himself----'
She paused, her eyes full of tears.
Lewis, watching her, told himself he would never understand women-folk. Here was a girl, overflowing with fanciful sentiment in some ways, who yet apparently had none to spare for the one subject round which sentiment was supposed to cling--love and marriage. In addition, here were two women, both of whom he desired to help, and yet they were at daggers-drawing about the best method of giving that aid. If he pleased one, he displeased the other; and anyhow, he got no comfort out of either.