But Isonna and some of the circumstances of the case had taught her more and more that any more forwardness would be seriously misconstrued by the invalid.
"You are awake," said Isonna, mysteriously, who was not blind to the maturing of the thing called womanhood.
"Ah," sighed the happy and miserable girl, "if to wake means this, then I wish that I might always have slept."
"You did not sleep," said the still mysterious maid.
"What did I then, little beast?"
"You dreamed."
"Then," begged the girl, with a piteous smile, "make me to dream again, and take care that I never wake."
"Ah, sweet mistress," said the maid, "there comes to all, in the matter of men, a time to sleep, a time to dream, and a time to wake. The sleep is best. For in that one knows nothing. The dream is sweet. But it never lasts. The waking sometimes is good—sometimes evil. Good it is if all is fair between a man and a woman. Evil it is if all is not. And, mistress dear, all is not fair between you and him. So there is another thing after the waking—which the gods make."
"What is that, wise little beast?" laughed Hoshiko.
"It is the forgetting which heals," said the maid.