IV
How There Was a Light in the Fog
AS she came toward him through the fog, “How annoying it is,” she was saying plaintively, “that these moors are never properly lighted.”
“Ah, but you must not blame Ole-Luk-Oie,” he protested. “It is all the fault of Beatricê Cenci....”
Then Kennaston knew he had unwittingly spoken magic words, for at once, just as he had seen it done in theaters, the girl’s face was shown him clearly in a patch of roseate light. It was the face of Ettarre.
“Things happen so in dreams,” he observed. “I know perfectly well I am dreaming, as I have very often known before this that I was dreaming. But it was always against some law to tell the people in my nightmares I quite understood they were not real people. To-day in my daydream, and here again to-night, there is no such restriction; and lovely as you are, I know that you are just a daughter of sub-consciousness or of memory or of jumpy nerves or, perhaps, of an improperly digested entrée.”
“No, I am real, Horvendile—but it is I who am dreaming you.”
“I had not thought to be a part of any woman’s dream nowadays.... Why do you call me Horvendile?”
She who bore the face of Ettarre pondered momentarily; and his heart moved with glad adoration.
“Now, by the beard of the prophet! I do not know,” the girl said, at last.
“The name means nothing to you?”