I laughed.
"Oh, you are very bitter!" I said.
"Not at all. I like accuracy. 'Princess' to the ingenuous mind suggests a fairy tale. I have not an ingenuous mind. I know that the princesses of the fairy tales do not exist,—unless you are one."
"Me!" I exclaimed, in amazement—"I'm very far from that—"
"Well, you are a dreamer!" he said, and resting his arms on the deck rail he looked away from me down into the sunlit sea—"You do not live here in this world with us—you think you do,—and yet in your own mind you know you do not. You dream—and your life is that of vision simply. I'm not sure that I should like to see you wake. For as long as you can dream you will believe in the fairy tale;—the 'princess' of Hans Andersen and the Brothers Grimm holds good—and that is why you should have pretty things about you,—music, roses and the like trifles,—to keep up the delicate delusion."
I was surprised and just a little vexed at his way of talking. Why, even with the underlying flattery of his words, should he call me a dreamer? I had worked for my own living as practically as himself in the world, and if not with such financially successful results, only because my aims had never been mere money-spinning. He had attained enormous wealth,—I a modest competence,—he was old and I was young,—he was ill and miserable,—I was well and happy,—which of us was the 'dreamer'? My thoughts were busy with this question, and he saw it.
"Don't perplex yourself,"—he said,—"and don't be offended with me for my frankness. My view of life is not yours,—nor are we ever likely to see things from the same standpoint. Yours is the more enviable condition. You are looking well,—you feel well—you are well! Health is the best of all things." He paused, and lifting his eyes from the contemplation of the water, regarded me fixedly. "That's a lovely bit of bell-heather you're wearing! It glows like fiery topaz."
I explained how it had been given to me.
"Why, then, you've already established a connection with the strange yacht!" he said, laughing—"The owner, according to your Highland fellow, has the same blossoms on board,—probably gathered from the same morass!—surely this is quite romantic and exciting!"
And at breakfast, when Dr. Brayle and Mr. Swinton appeared, they all made conversation on the subject of my bunch of heather, till I got rather tired of it, and was half inclined to take it off and throw it away. Yet somehow I could not do this. Glancing at my own reflection in a mirror, I saw what a brilliant yet dainty touch of colour it gave to the plain white serge of my yachting dress,—it was a pretty contrast, and I left it alone.