Not pausing to review those amazing moments of inner tumult, she stepped again to the door and with her old, careless, mildly amused laugh she beat upon it, loudly this time. She heard an inarticulate call from the studio, and again she assaulted the panel. Then the curtain was drawn aside and Ewing stared at her from the doorway.
"I believe you were sleeping," she started to say, but he came quickly to her with something between a laugh and a shout.
"Then it's true, it is true—you're real! I just dreamed that you became Ben Crider and made me walk in the middle of the street." He fairly rushed her into the studio and waved excitedly to the open trunks.
"There! I began to pack last night so I could see it when I woke up and have a proof that things were true. I didn't sleep at all till about eight this morning."
She sat on the couch, feeling that she was foolish beyond measure to avoid the eyes of the portrait. Then she smiled at him with an effort to recover the amused ascendancy of their first meetings.
"It's all true, I assure you, and I wonder if you'd mind taking charge of me when you go East. My brother has suggested it, and I'll promise not to be a trouble."
His look of wondering delight was so utterly boyish, his helpless laughter so entirely without reserve that she regained for the moment her old easy dominance.
"Would I mind—mind going with you? That's a joke, isn't it?" He seized both her hands in a grasp from which she caught some thrill of his deep-breathed, electric joy.
"But of course this is nonsense," he went on; "I'm still lying there."
"Enough of dreams," she broke in warningly. "You'll find it only too, too real. You're going to work. It's simple."