"It's true. When I awoke, of course, I just thought it was absurd and silly, as dreams are. But I could not forget it. The dream haunted me, as your face had haunted me. When mother came home from meeting you in town, and told me that you were the man in the Gallery, and that you wanted to marry me, I was such a conceited pussy-cat that after the first surprise I thought it really probable that you had fallen in love at first sight."
"Is it possible?"
"Oh, don't make any mistake. I would not have dreamed of saying 'Yes' if I had not been so beaten down and driven into a corner. But I do think the dream turned the scale. I said to mother that, if, when you came, you turned out to be a person whom I felt I could never like, I should refuse. Then you came. I kept thinking of the ridiculous dream all the time; and when you mentioned the statue—do you remember?—I actually thought that you must have dreamed the same thing. I felt as if you were talking a language that you and I understood: as if you knew that you could convey a secret meaning to me—a message—without words. Oh, it is so difficult to explain, but I felt that——"
"Yes? For pity's sake go on!"
"As if one day I might come to like you very much."
"As much as this?" he whispered.
"Oh, I never thought—I never imagined, this."
There was a little silence.
"And then," he sighed at last, "into the midst of your timid, hopeful sweetness, fell the bomb-shell of my brutality."
She laughed as in scorn at herself. "It was unexpected," she owned. "I was so sure that you wanted to make love to me and didn't know how to begin. And I was so afraid of you, and growing more and more so every minute. Oh, Osbert, I did suffer."