“Oh, when he ‘s back in bed again!” Hudson answered with a laugh. “Yes, call it a dream. It was a very happy one!”
“Tell me this,” said Rowland. “Did you mean anything by your young Water-drinker? Does he represent an idea? Is he a symbol?”
Hudson raised his eyebrows and gently scratched his head. “Why, he ‘s youth, you know; he ‘s innocence, he ‘s health, he ‘s strength, he ‘s curiosity. Yes, he ‘s a good many things.”
“And is the cup also a symbol?”
“The cup is knowledge, pleasure, experience. Anything of that kind!”
“Well, he ‘s guzzling in earnest,” said Rowland.
Hudson gave a vigorous nod. “Aye, poor fellow, he ‘s thirsty!” And on this he cried good night, and bounded down the garden path.
“Well, what do you make of him?” asked Cecilia, returning a short time afterwards from a visit of investigation as to the sufficiency of Bessie’s bedclothes.
“I confess I like him,” said Rowland. “He ‘s very immature,—but there ‘s stuff in him.”
“He ‘s a strange being,” said Cecilia, musingly.