"I'll tell you anything you like to know," she answered.
"You liked her?" asked Julian.
"She was so different from everybody else in my world," Stella explained. "I don't think I judged her; I just admired her. She was awfully good to me. I didn't see her very often, but it was all the brightness of my life."
"Stella, you've never told me about your life," Julian said irrelevantly. "Will you some day? I want to know about the town hall and that town clerk fellow."
"There isn't anything to tell you," said Stella. "I mean about that, and Marian was never in my life. She couldn't have been, you know; but she was my special dream. I used to love to hear about all her experiences and her friends; and then—do you remember the night of Chaliapine's opera? It was the only opera I ever went to, so of course I remember; but perhaps you don't. You were there with Marian. I think I knew then—"
"Knew what?" asked Julian, leaning forward a little. "You seem awfully interested in that gravel path, Stella?"
"Knew," she said, without turning her head, "what you meant to her."
"Where were you?" Julian inquired. "Looking down from the ceiling or up from a hole in the ground, where the good people come from? I never saw you."
"Ah, you wouldn't," said Stella. "I was in the gallery. Do you remember the music?"
"Russian stuff," Julian said. "Pack of people going into a fire, yes. Funnily enough, I've thought of it since, more than once, too; but I didn't know you were there."