I was beginning to think that the desert air had even more marvelous properties than those that had been claimed for it: Mr. Hawkins hadn't played a practical joke in weeks, not since the time he poured a bottle of ink into Grant's bucket of soapy cleaning water. Whether it was the desert air, or the influence of his dainty companion, I didn't know.
One Saturday morning while Mr. Hawkins was getting his car filled with gas at the service station across the street, Miss Nesdeburt waited in the office. She was wearing a dull, inconspicuous dress. She watched Grant, who was putting a door between the office and the living room--to take the place of the filmy curtain that had been there. We had had very little privacy, with only a thin bit of drapery separating our living room from the office. We still wouldn't have complete privacy, since there was a window in the top half of the new door--but as soon as I made little curtains for the window, no one would be able to look into our living room.
When Grant laid down his tools and went out to the garage, Miss Nesdeburt smiled at me, and two delicate fans of wrinkles appeared about her eyes.
"I had a dream," she told me, "and I think people should share their dreams, don't you, ma cherie?"
"Absolutely," I agreed. I was at the desk in the office, catching up on the previous day's bookkeeping.
"I dreamed I was a beautiful young girl," she said, taking her glasses off with one tiny hand, and holding the other hand up, letting it droop gracefully at the wrist. "My hair was fiery red, simply terribly red, and so were my lips. I was built like a goddess. My bosom was high and proud, my waist was just the right size for a strong man's hands to encircle." She stopped, and stood there in ecstatic reverie.
"And then?" I prodded.
"Ah, and then. There was a prince--a gallant, polite prince with the most wonderful sense of humor. He wore a suit of armor and rode a white charger and went out to do battle for me--"
"Wasn't he a knight?" I interrupted.
"No, no, a prince; or at least, he said he was. And I see no reason to think he wasn't being truthful about it.... Anyway, he loved me more than anything else in the world, and he wanted me to marry him."