"You have had children."
"One child--a girl."
"Was she no compensation?"
"Really, I can hardly tell you. I seem to have seen so little of her; though, of course, she has been with me nearly all the time. But, somehow, to myself, I never seem yet to have become a mother."
"How old is she?"
"Let me see, she was born the year that I was married, so she must be nearly eighteen. Frankly, Inez is so different to me in all respects that she never seems to me to be my daughter. Here she is." If Lady Griswold did not welcome the opening door, which was possible, she allowed no sign of annoyance to escape her. "Inez, this is Mr Ferguson."
Mr Ferguson stood staring, as if spellbound, at the girl who had entered the room. He felt more than half inclined to rub his eyes. It was an extraordinary thing. This big-eyed girl, who was so unlike the fair and stately Lady Griswold that she might almost have belonged to a different race of human beings, he seemed to have seen many and many a time in his dreams. He who flattered himself that he was no dreamer. Her appearance was so familiar to him that he could have drawn her likeness even before she entered the room. It was odd. It was even preposterous. Yet it was so. She advanced with outstretched hand. Even her soft, musical voice, with its faint suggestion of a foreign accent, seemed familiar to him.
"Mr Ferguson, I have seen you before."
"You have seen me, Miss Griswold? Where?"
"In my dreams."